


Prelude to Destiny

by AnEscapeFromReality



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Marauders' Era, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-14
Updated: 2006-04-21
Packaged: 2019-01-19 03:17:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 207,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12401970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnEscapeFromReality/pseuds/AnEscapeFromReality
Summary: Lily Evans knew she wasn't very good at magical laser tag. In fact, she usually ended up in last place. But that didn't stop her from playing with enthusiasm. For that matter, hardly anything made her ever hold back. Not ex-boyfriends or bad Halloween costumes or competitive prefects. Not even her lousy sixth year.





	1. Prologue: The Way They Were

Night had fallen, shrouding the castle in a darkness that Lily Evans tried to use. She hid behind a suit of armour in a far corner of the fifth floor, trying to breathe silently. Every part of her -- from tiny pinky toe to pointed shoulder blade--ached with the pain of motionlessness. Ten minutes had passed and still Lily heard not a sound; that was too long, much too long, for nothing to have happened. Someone should have passed by.

She readjusted her wand sweaty grip. Actually, every part of her was damp with sweat (though the April night air was still quite chilly). Her robes, which she had charmed to blend in more easily with the dark walls, clung to her body.

Another few minutes ticked by. Then it happened: footsteps. They were uneven,  someone shuffling forward and pausing every now and again to make sure no one was around.

Lily's heart beat three times faster. The footsteps continued to move towards her. Never loosening her grip on her wand, Lily reached down and tried to wipe some of the dampness off her hands. Closer and closer the feet came until finally Lily realized that she had to somehow unfold herself from her crouching position. Slowly, so slowly, she stretched her legs out under her. By the time she came to a full standing position, Lily realized that she had not heard the footsteps in a long time and began to panic.

\-----------

****  
_Two cultures and a thousand miles from you, there is a castle on a hill nestled above a glittering lake and a field with six giant bubble-blowers protruding out of the ground. It is a place where things float, shatter, and repair themselves, where the swish of stick rules the hearts of the students and staff, where pictures drink and lie, and some animals are only visible to those who have seen the worst of life._

_This castle suffered greatly this year. A woman intent on its destruction displaced its beloved headmaster and stripped it of hope and happiness. Save a pair identical twins, this place was void of laughter, but it was not always so. Little more than twenty-seven years ago the castle withstood four friends whose laughter shook the thousand year-old building. Little more than twenty-seven years ago four girls ran wild in these halls in a crazy game that none but themselves understood, and these children's lives were blanketed in the happiness that came to be taken from these hollowed grounds._

_If you wanted to see what that was like back then, the journey would take you across the insurmountable barrier of Time, through a concrete post, onto a legendary train, and then make you wait out the ride in a small, old-fashioned compartment. After, you would take a horseless carriage ride to a castle that appears to most to be nothing more than rubble. You would open entrance doors the size of your house. Taking a step across the threshold, the sheer size and nature of the building would strike you dumb: the large, dark, silent halls; the cold stone floor; the old, worn, and distant walls._

_Even inside the castle, finding the children would be nearly impossible. The boys sit in a room only reached by traversing seven flights of moving stairs (one invisible), crossing four passages over (two so well hidden that the caretaker does not know of them), and walking to the end of a dusty, seemingly-unused corridor. In a corner so dark that it must be unnatural, there is a door that you would overlook if I had not mentioned it. Behind that door, the four boys you seek are sitting on the floor: three reading books too large to lift without the aid of magic and the fourth pacing. In two minutes, despite having found the answer they seek in that tome, one performs the spell incorrectly and is left with a hoof as an arm for an hour._

_The girls are even more challenging to discover because they would never be found in the same room, corridor, or even floor if they could help it._

_Now you may have assumed that the boys are studious to a fault studying Transfiguration well into the night and stupid, while the girls are in the middle of a great row that left them fuming at one another. Though these assumptions would not be illogical, they are incorrect. The boys are learning a spell both illegal and dangerous, which is why it is necessary to learn in the privacy of the night in an unnoticeable room. The girls are playing a game best_ _understood through observation._

\-----------

****  
Now standing behind that suit of armour, Lily realized how imperfectly positioned she was: the small window twenty feet up the wall was the only source of light that Lily had and as there was no moon, she could barely seen her own wand. But that was why they had chosen this night to play, wasn't it? The darkness made it more interesting.

Lily's wand -- gripped in her ever-more sweaty and cramped right hand -- threatened to succumb to the horrifying prospect of gravity as her hand lost more and more of its feeling, but none of that mattered as she once more focused on the now-missing footsteps. Where were they? As the silence stretched on and on, Lily weighed her options: stay hidden, nearly blind and vulnerable, or take a leap of faith.

Lily jumped out from behind the armour as quickly as her sore muscles would let her.

" _Estulumos!_ " Lily yelled, pointing her wand where she thought the other person would be, praying that it was not a professor or the caretaker. Luckily, it was neither. Unluckily, her target did not appear affected by the spell and she cast it back on Lily, who was not fast enough to block it and was frozen.

" _Lumos_ ," said a voice in front of Lily.

In her incapacitated state, Lily blinked several times before her eyes adjusted to the light and she was able to see the person in front of her: tall with long black hair and dark shadows covering her face, this girl's most unnerving feature was her unwavering smile.

"I hit you," Lily muttered sourly through her unmoving lips.

"And I wasn't hurt, did you notice?" That smug response irritated Lily. A lot. Stupid best friend. "Maybe you ought to work on casting spells, what do you think?"

"Psh," was all Lily could say in response. Dropping her laughing eyes from Lily's face, the girl, whose name was Samantha Caldwell, pointed her wand at her left arm where a line of names and numbers were located.

"You're frozen for thirty more seconds. I got forty points for a chest hit and am now currently in first place. You are in last, having lost ten points, but I should leave before you unfreeze. Stupid No Backs rule."

With that, Samantha, more commonly known as Sam, said, " _Nox_ ," and was gone, dashing down the corridor.

When the feeling returned to Lily's legs, she turned and ran in the opposite direction, remembering Sam's ambush tactic from third year. Lighting her wand, Lily checked her own arm to see if Sam had told the truth about the scores. Lily could not possibly be in last already. Except for that one time, she had not been hit all game. Mind you, she hadn't hit anyone either, but last place didn't seem fair. It was true, though. The letters on her arm were blue (Sam's favourite colour) indicating Sam's position of distinction above her friends.

Hearing a noise behind her, Lily said, " _Nox_ ," and poured on the speed. She noticed an odd spiral staircase once she was almost past it, and jumped onto it as fast as she could. Taking it two-stairs at a time, she reached the top (a trapdoor she needed to push up) in less than ten seconds. After crawling into the room at the top and slamming the door behind her, she looked around to find herself in the strangest Hogwarts room she had ever seen. Every wall had a square door in the middle of it. Randomly, she chose the door behind her, opening and shutting it just in time to see the floor door beginning to be pushed up.

The corridor she now ran through gave off enough light to let Lily see the numbers on her arm change. Christine had hit Sam in the back, freezing her for a minute and giving herself twenty points and taking ten off Sam, bumping her into second place and Christine into first. That meant they were too far away to be the ones chasing Lily. It had to be either Tracy or a faculty member. She did not bother to wait and find out.

Frantically turning left and right whenever she felt she needed to, Lily ran through every secret passageway that she knew and a few she didn't; yet the footsteps persisted. Daring to duck into a nice little nook she barely noticed, Lily waited. The footsteps ran past her. Lily quickly aimed and yelled, " _Estulumos!_ "

This time the spell hit her target and Lily saw, in the brief light of the spell, that it was indeed Tracy who had hunted her. Quickly looking at her arm, Lily saw she had only twenty seconds before the other girl unfroze. Lily sprinted off quickly, not bothering to say anything to Tracy.

Breathing harshly, Lily ran up two more staircases and through four more secret passages before a flash of light sprang up behind her. Instantly, she procured a Shield Charm, never missing a step. But then there was another spell shot at her and the Shield Charm didn't work as well that time. Not knowing what else to do, Lily jumped at the first door she saw. It was locked.

" _Alohamora!_ " she yelled, knowing she did not have time to look for another door.

The door sprang open and she ran through, barely shutting it before another beam of light passed by her. Without realizing why there was light in the room, Lily took advantage of the situation and glanced at the numbers on her arm. Twenty-six more seconds remained before the Tracy's No Back time elapsed and Lily could shoot her once more. But that was not what caught her attention. The fact that Sam had fallen into fourth place after accidentally stunning herself was more important and meant that Lily had a chance of getting second if she could keep Tracy from hitting her and make it back to Gryffindor Tower before the time limit expired.

Trying to steady her breathing, Lily turned to see if there was an alternate way out of the room in case Tracy broke the Locking Charm Lily placed on the door. Four sets of eyes looked back at her in shocked, angry, curious, and bewildered ways.

"What are you doing--" began the boy closest to her. A loud noise exploded from the door, interrupting his question.

"What was that?" asked the boy in the corner of the room, brandishing his wand in a threatening manner.

"Nothing," lied Lily, trying to keep a straight face as she realized what this most look like to someone who knew nothing of the secret game. Another bang on the door temporarily put out the torches by the door, letting Lily notice more clearly when exactly her arm flashed green: the signal that the No Back was over.

Quietly taking the spell off the door, Lily did not notice one of the boys relighting the torches until the light once more poured through the room. She was too busy rapidly opening the door, shouting the spell while aiming in a random direction and shutting the door before Tracy had time to retaliate. The numbers on her arm did not change; she had missed.

"Nineteen minutes left and you're down by fifteen to me and fifty to Christine! You can't win! Let me take the points and beat Christine!" Tracy yelled through the door, pleading with Lily to take a fall. Like that would ever happen.

The boys in the room may have said something, asked her questions, stared at her in all of the strangeness, but Lily did not noticed. She was too busy trying to think of a way to leave this room and run back to her common room in nineteen minutes without getting hit by Tracy because there was absolutely no way she would ever simply accept defeat.

There was no way around it; she would just have to make a break for it.

Throwing open the door, Lily remained hidden behind it, waiting until after Tracy's first curse barrelled through before she pivoted around the door and shot out her own spell, hitting the other girl right in the stomach and giving Lily twenty-seven seconds to run before the other girl unfroze. It was not actually that much time when Lily realized she knew neither where she was nor how to get back to her house. So she ran as fast as she could toward the best-lit corridor, leaving the four boys just as she had found them: shocked, angry, curious, and bewildered.

Eventually she recognized a staircase and two portraits. Proud to know that she found her way, Lily's confidence soared. Or at least it soared until she was stunned from the side. Instantly frozen, the only reason she saw who hit her was because Christine -- fun-loving, always vaguely lost Christine -- streaked past her.

Almost the moment Lily's stunning wore off, another light hit her, harder, and she was frozen once more. This time it was the tan body of Sam who raced past, sprinting after Christine, obviously trying for one last hit before the tower. Lily would have surely been stunned a third time if it hadn't been for her excellent learning curve: as soon as she unfroze, she shot out a Shield Charm, deflecting two Stuns from what must have been Tracy.

Sprinting to the left after the last shot faded into oblivion, leaving the hall in complete darkness, Lily raced through three corridors on a floor she vaguely knew, avoiding curses being shot at her from one of her best friends, and having the time of her life. Her arm began to blink white, notifying her that only five minutes remained before the time limit expired. Putting every last breath she had into it, Lily raced for the tower, knowing she could not afford to lose the sixty points that missing the deadline entailed. It was in her hurry to get back that she made her most lucky encounter of the night: Filch, the caretaker.

She knocked him over.

"You lousy, disrespectful, nuisance of a girl!" he yelled, hurrying to stand up, grabbing her upper arm painfully as her did so, dragging her to her feet. "You'll be expelled for this. Running around at this hour of the morning, trying to kill Mrs. Norris and me. You'll surely be gone from here soon."

"But--" Lily panted, trying to think of something to say to make him stop.

"No talking!" He shuddered and suddenly an idea came to her. He tightened his gripped on her arm so much that she cried out in pain instead of finishing her thought.

"I was chasing first years," she said, trying to catch her breath, the pain in her side hurting her almost as much as his hand on her arm. "I'm a Prefect and saw them sneak out. I thought you were one. I was trying to stop them."

"Liar! You ought to be beaten for such--" A burst of light shot toward the pair of them and though it did not hit them, it gave Filch a reason to believe Lily.

"First years! Attacking me!" He gave Lily one last shake them ran off to catch his prey: Tracy. Lily had to warn her. Loudly she yelled,

"Get them, Mr. Filch!"

She hoped that was enough to save her friend whatever punishment she would have otherwise incurred, but Lily could not wait to see. Spinning and taking every precaution, even sending out the Shield Charm, Lily sprinted towards the tower, making it back with barely forty-four seconds remaining before the end of the game.

Bending at the middle, Lily rested her hands on her knees and gulped in air, trying to ignore the sweat drying all over her body. When she finally managed to stand upright, her wandless left hand gripping her side, she noticed a person lounging quite comfortably on an armchair in front of the fire.

"I... hate... you," Lily said between gasps of breath, recognizing Sam in a moment. In response, the girl smiled. Sam might have actually said something, but she was interrupted as they both turned to stare at the portrait hole. It had sounded like something large had just run into the portrait at full speed.

"Christine," Sam guessed, making Lily smile as her breathing continued to progress toward normal. Sam's guess was soon proved correct as Christine, whose left side of her face looked painfully red, stumbled through the portrait hole, looking satisfied, though she obviously just ran into a wall at top speed.

"Made it," she sighed, panting like Lily.

"And Tracy won't," replied Lily. The girls looked at their left arms to see the last seconds of the game come to an end. As soon as the game ended, the numbers disappeared from their arms in a bright flash. After that dimmed, each girl held a piece of parchment in her hand.

"What?" yelled Sam, her eyes growing wide as she saw the results.

"I hit Tracy in the chest from three floors away. One minute ago," Christine announced as she continued reading the parchment, her cheek growing more and more red.

Sam let out a moan, seeing the final scores printed on the parchment, knowing she had only lost because Christine had made an amazing last-moment hit worth one-hundred points. Lily had learned not to care about the final results the way the others did. Still, Lily smiled: she had come in third, not last.

"I love this game," Lily announced, hopping up to sit on the edge of the couch where Sam sat.

"Though no one knows why since you haven't won it since third year," Sam said, folding and placing her parchment in her pocket.

"Winning isn't everything," Lily said, swinging her legs.

"It's just mostly everything," Sam replied, nudging Lily with her shoulder.

"True," Christine agreed. The three friends stayed there, waiting for their fourth member to come in, but when the portrait hole opened it was not Tracy crawling in. Instead, it was the four male Gryffindor fifth years, the four same boys Lily had shared a room with for a few brief moments that night as she hid from Tracy. They were complaining loudly about having had to run away from Filch.

"I stopped him!" James Potter said. The girls glanced over at him; he was a short, black-haired boy who had fallen heavily for himself this past year. "I shot the greatest Stunning Charm at him." Lily rolled her eyes at Christine and Sam, who smiled.

"Let's wait for Tracy upstairs," Sam suggested. Lily and Christine stood and walked towards the door that led to their staircase.

"Let me!" James yelled. Then he proceeded to magically open their door with such force that it slammed against the wall, making a loud cracking sound.

"Super well done. Let’s make sure everyone wakes up," Lily said, exasperated and annoyed before she opened the door manually and the girls walked through, disappearing a moment before Tracy walked through the portrait hole and made her way up to their dorm where they sat on the edge of their beds and retold the most exciting part of their nights. When Lily got to the Room of Doors, their dorm door opened. Sam, Christine, and Lily turned to see Tracy, whose short brown hair looked like an animal attacked it. Maybe two animals. Her eyes locked on Christine.

"I was in first! I was in first, and then you came along _out of nowhere_!" Christine looked back, smiling. "I was shot one minute before the end of the game, in the middle of a staircase, and then I see Filch coming at me!"

As Tracy told them her story, the other girls tried and failed not to laugh while two staircases and a corridor over, the boys got into their own beds, tired and unnerved by the events of the night.

 

\----------

 

 _So here, at 3:13 in the morning, you would finally find those whom you came so far to understand. You would travel across years and oceans, history and commonsense to find these eight people because you have met the next generation and believe you need to know their history. You would look for the truth about Harry Potter, but I warn you that it is not what you expect; it is only how it was on April 17th, 1973, right after a hard rain had fallen on what looks to most to be a pile of ruins, in the third year of Voldemort's Rising, when those whose destinies would lead into myth and legend had no greater aspirations than to learn how to change into an animal and win a magical game of Laser Tag._  


	2. Prologue: The Way They Were

Satan had obviously had a hand in creating O.W.L. exams. All the Hogwarts fifth years agreed.

And with the O.W.L.s were finally, blessedly behind them, the fifth years couldn't quite believe their good fortune. In fact, the four female Gryffindor fifth years lay confusedly bereft at not needing to revise for months yet. The train ride home felt confusing.

The girls occupied every corner of their compartment: a tall blonde sprawled on the floor; a redhead taking up an entire bench, resting her head on the lap of the black-haired girl who stretched her legs out and placed them on the bench opposite them where a short brunette rested. None of them spoke. None wanted to. All they wanted to do was rest.

Lily Evans, the redhead, tried to force herself into the sort of meditative state her dad's friend talked about when he was a little bit sloshed-- an emptiness in the brain where everything was in perfect order. Peace. Contentment. Anything other than what happened after the Defence exam. No. Nope. She would definitely not think about that because even thinking about it made her embarrassed. Yes, she would think about something else. Think about something... else...

_"Oh shoot!" Lily moaned when she finally realized why she and her friends were heading out of the castle. "I don't know if I brought my Herbology things." She slowed and searched her bag for her Herbology book and the essay it within it._

_"Your book's in the very bottom of you bag, under your parchment," Sam said. Lily shifted a few things and let out an excited shout as she pulled the thick book out of her bag._

_"Ew," Christine said, pointing at the parchment and quills and scraps of real paper haphazardly shoved into Lily's bag._

_"Which means Christine thinks your bag looks like a cat went into it, had a party, and then died. Twice," Tracy said._

_"This bag is the embodiment of organization, thank you very much," Lily said as she patted her bag fondly._

_"Yes, we can see that," Tracy said, rolling her eyes._

_"As long as Sam knows where everything is, I don't see how any of you can say it's disorganized." Lily turned her book upside down and shook, trying to find her essay. The parchment slid out of the pages and spiraled to the ground._

_"We're going to be late. Again," Sam said._

_Lily picked up the parchment,_ scourgify _ing away the mud._ _"All right, I'm ready now."_

_By the time they arrived at the Greenhouse, class had already started and the four girls received a stern look from Professor Sprout. They looked regretful, put their essays on Sprout's desk, and then situated themselves at a table in the back of the room._

_The highlight, or more like the lowlight, of the class came nearly fifty minutes into it. Sirius Black, a boy who prided himself in his lack of respect for every other person on the planet, picked up a pot, spun it on his finger, yelled for everyone to look, and then promptly dropped and shattered the pot._

_Everything turned green._

_Everything._

_The floor, students, other flowers, the professor, walls, glass, glasses, tables, stools, everything. Green, green, green._

_"My_ Lepitum Vernicius! _" Sprout exclaimed, rushing forward, green hands stretched out toward the shattered pot. Silence from the students. "Seven years. That took me seven years to grow!"_

_With a strangled sort of sob, Professor Sprout vanished the entirety of her plant, erasing the green from the room. She barely hid her sobs. Lily wanted to throw something heavy at Sirius Black._

_"Class dismissed," came the sad, quiet, shaking voice of the Herbology professor as she sank to her knees. Lily moved closer to her professor, not knowing what else to do, and touched the older woman on the shoulder._

_"Class dismissed, Miss Evans," said Sprout, her voice stronger, sadder, and angrier._

_Lily grabbed her things and headed for the exit, too preoccupied with the image of her broken professor to think about finding her friends. Lily wished she could have done something, anything. She could have told Sirius to stop. She could have--_

_"Don't know what she was all worked up about," said a voice behind Lily casually. "It was just a plant. Did you see her crying?"_

_Lily spun around, her eyes flashing. Who would be that idiotic? But the answer was as obvious as it could have ever been: James Potter, Sirius's ever-present accomplice._

_"You're an arse" she snapped. He looked taken aback. Then he recovered and smirked, which only served to irritate Lily even more. "She spent seven years growing that plant and your friend ruined it. Why? For a bit of attention! We all know you've no commonsense or feelings, but did you just have to prove it to the Ravenclaws?"_

_"It was cool when he was spinning--"_

_"You are a moron!"_

_His smirk did not waver. She wanted to conjure an anvil to drop on his over-sized ego. Instead, she moved forward to claw his eyes out, but Sam restrained her._

_"Come on, Lily, let's go to lunch," said Sam. Lily looked at James and felt like screaming at him some more, but instead she just turned and stalked back up to the castle. Sam walked beside her, saying nothing and offering no advise._

_"That was brilliant, Potter. Really grabbed her attention," some boy said as Lily yanked open the giant doors that led to the Entrance Hall. She barely heard it and immediately forgot it, but she had yelled at him loud enough for everyone to hear and talk about, and then after the Defence O.W.L. she had gone and yelled at him in front of the whole school and he had asked her out and... Frick! She was thinking about it again: that horrific moment after the Defence O.W.L. down by the lake. She had promised herself she would stop thinking about that. But it was so hard when she remember the way she just went insane, basically._

Lily opened her eyes suddenly, overwhelmed with embarrassment. "I shouldn't have blown up like that."

"Are you still on about yelling at James?" Tracy McGrath, the sandy-blonde lying on the bench opposite her, asked.

"Yes." Lily shut her eyes and draping her left arm over her eyes.

"He was acting like an idiot," Sam Caldwell said, calm and logical. But who needed calm and logical? Lily needed pity. She wanted pity!

"True," Christine O'Connell agreed from the floor. Lily rolled over to see her blonde friend lying flat on her back in the aisle, hands under her head. But Christine rarely, if ever, regretted her actions, so that wasn't exactly comforting.

"You can't change what you did," Sam said, patting her friend on the arm. Lily squeezed her eyes shut, not letting Sam's soothing voice reassure her. What did Sam know about making a fool of yourself? It seemed to Lily that Sam, in all of the years they had known each other, had never managed to say or do a single embarrassing thing.

"I think we should all reconsider jumping off the train. That way we won't have to think about Lily yelling at James Potter or O.W.L. scores," Tracy commented as she remained motionless on her bench. Looking at her, Lily could only see the side profile of her face: small round head with shoulder-length sandy-blonde hair. But looking at Tracy only reminded Lily of the Gryffindor Quidditch team (for whom Tracy played Beater) and that only made her think of the star player--

"Argh. I need to stop thinking about this. I made a fool of myself and I should just accept that," Lily moaned, ignoring Tracy.

"True. He deserved it," Christine agreed.

"He was being so mean!" Lily exclaimed, throwing her arms up. "And no one was saying anything, but then I guess I thought, sure, this is my place to be a complete loon."

"You only seemed sort of unhinged--"

"James is normally a good enough bloke," Tracy said, rolling over onto her left side, tucking her arm under her head.

"He plays Quidditch well, you mean," Sam said.

"That, too," Tracy agreed, closing her eyes and pretending to fall asleep.

"But he's so-- he thinks he's so suave," Lily spat.

Tracy smiled. "Well, he's not suave, but he flies better than anyone on the team--"

"And that gives him the right to act like a sodding idiot?" Lily asked, annoyed that her friend was taking James' side. Tracy barely knew him as a teammate and Lily was practically her best friend!

"On game days? Yes," Tracy affirmed, smiling a smile that could best be described as adorable. But everything about Tracy could be described as adorable. A little below average height, her body gave the immediate impression of a dancer: strong leg muscles and shoulders. Her shoulder-length light brown hair was often pulled back into tiny pigtails at the back of her head. Which just meant people were terribly shocked when she hit a bludger at an opponent's head.

"Tracy--"

A knock caused all the girls to roll over and eye the door. Then the silent battle started.

"Are you going to open the door, Christine?" Sam asked. 

"No," Christine replied, continuing to deeply consider the door.

"I'm not getting up again. Ever," Lily added, wallowing in her self-pity. "Tracy can. She needs the exercise."

Sam turned a dazzling smile on Tracy, who rolled her eyes, grunted and looked annoyed.

"Good grief. Is sitting up really this much of an issue?" Tracy muttered as she sat up with her legs extended on the bench, and then, demonstrating her excellent agility, reached all the way over her toes and pushed open the door. In the doorway stood a tall, blonde figure of Matthew McGrath, Tracy's brother.

"Don't you look like a little ray of sunshine?" he joked, grinning at Tracy's grumpy face.

"Always," she said, managing to twist in her seat so that her feet swung off the bench and hung near Christine's stomach.

"I'm heading down the train. Want to come?" Matt asked. Less than two years apart, Matt and Tracy managed to be good friends.

"Will you buy me things off the cart?" Tracy asked, blue eyes lighting up.

"Yes," he sighed, smiling at his sister, who managed to scare off even the biggest opponents with her fierce arm, ruthless attitude, and perfect aim.

"Then I'm coming," Tracy replied, standing.

"Me, too," Christine said, sitting up.

"Were you invited?" Lily asked.

"Why would I have to be?" Christine was never one to let another person's feelings, plans, or opinions change what she did.

"Stumpy goes where Stumpy wants," Matt quipped. Christine and Tracy had first become friends a couple of years before entering Hogwarts, earning a nickname that now made no sense given her towering height-- just a smidge beneath Matt. Actually, Christine looked the part of his sister more than Tracy.

Tracy (short, tightly built, with light brown hair) shared no physical characteristics with her brother except their blue eyes. His pale skin contrasted her tan. Her compact, strong figure looked strange next to his tall, muscled body. Still, there was no doubt that they were both good-looking.

"You're the best brother ever," Tracy said, smirking as she wrapped her arm through his. "Taking care of my friend and me."

"Shut it, you." But Matt was smiling down at her. Matt said goodbye to Lily and Sam, his Ravenclaw robes swishing around him as they set off down the train.

Sam soon realized there was a free bench and dumped Lily's head off of her lap, sliding over to take Tracy's spot. Once fully stretched out, Sam twirled her raven-black hair in a tight bun and rested her head on it.

"This is wonderful," Sam said.

"Sure."

"And now that they're gone, you can tell me why you're really so upset about the Potter thing." Sometimes Lily wished Sam didn't understand her so well. Tracy and Christine assumed Lily was upset because she had screamed at a housemate.

Lily closed her eyes and sighed. "You know why."

"No, I don't think I do." There was a pause.

"I liked James so much, Sam," Lily said quietly, scared to put the words out any louder than a whisper. "I liked him even though I knew he was a conceited idiot, even though I knew he was an idiot. I couldn't help it. I can't help it. He's just so- so freaking perfect."

"And that's made you yell at him all those times this year?" Sam sounded confused. But eff that. Other people occasionally made arses of themselves. And Sam would too if she weren't so intensely shy and insistent about avoiding attention.

"Well he certainly managed to make me feel stupid about liking him, didn't he?" Lily asked rhetorically. "He was so horrible to so many people and then he kept doing that thing with his hair and the snitch and those horrendous pranks on Severus Snape--"

"I know."

"He was a bully." Shame crashed over her again. This was the guy she liked?

"He was."

"And I felt like an fool for liking him."

"So you yelled at him a lot," Sam said. She still sounded confused. Lily wanted to shrink herself and run away.

"I didn't plan to yell at him," Lily moaned, opening her eyes and tracing the lines of on the ceiling with her eyes. "It just happened. I was already frustrated with myself for liking him when I knew I shouldn't and he had to go and prove he really was an immature ass and be so cocky about everything. It just kind of boiled over." Lily's hands hung in the air as she finished her rant with a dramatic gesture. Slowly she lowered them onto her stomach and lay staring at the roof.

"Do you still like him?" Sam asked.

"Yes," Lily muttered. Yes! Lily wanted to scream the word, scream until her voice was raw and she could pretend she was lying. She liked him even when he was a bullying toerag, even when he was asking her out to mock her, even when he was harassing other students. This sucked.

"What are you going to do?" Sam asked.

"Find a boy to make me stop thinking about him, I guess. A boy who is completely different than him." Lily was proud of her plan.

"Brilliant idea, that." Sam sounded sarcastic.

"It is!"

Sam paused. "What if-- what if James likes you?" Lily laughed. "I'm serious. He did ask you out."

"As a joke. To prove some point," Lily said, her heart dropping into her stomach. "He did it to make me look stupid, and the worst thing is that it hurt so much, Sam. After a year and a half of liking him, he only said them to make fun of me. It was the worst moment of my entire life." Lily's eyes narrowed. "He thought he was so cool with his hair all askew--"

"You thought he looked good."

"Not the point, Sam."

"Actually, I remember you telling me how good he look when we were down by the lake--"

"Ahhhh!" Lily exclaimed, throwing her hands over her eyes and feeling completely mortified. "I need to get over this. I need to stop liking him. I need to not care about him."

"Because that's so easy when he's in all of your classes?" Sam asked.

"He won't be next year," Lily said grumpily, letting her hands fall to her sides.

"He might be."

"Please don't let him be," Lily prayed. "I couldn't handle being in all of James Potter's classes next year, too. It was hard enough when he looked so good this year. Oh! Maybe over break he'll convert to uglyism."

"Uglyism?" Sam repeated.

"A new religion," Lily replied.

"Oh right, of course. This is all part of your get-over-James plan," Sam said, humouring Lily. Lily pick up her shoe and threw it at Sam.

"Shut it. I will get over James Potter this holiday and then everything will be right in my world," Lily said, trying to convince herself more than Sam. Lily needed to get past this, get past this self-doubt and self-pity and this very self-destructive crush.

"You know--" but what Lily may or may not have known was never said because the compartment door opened at that moment, revealing Remus Lupin. Both girls sat up, though Sam only got as far as her resting her hands of the bench. Lily's heart skipped a few beats out of fright before she remembered that the doors were soundproof-- wonderfully, fabulously, magically soundproof. This was a relief because Remus Lupin, besides being many other things, was James Potter's good friend. That meant what Remus heard, James heard. Lily had never been more thankful for magic in her life.

"There's a party in the prefect compartment now," Remus muttered, looking at Lily after he glanced quickly at Sam, who looked perfectly dignified, her black hair falling beautifully over her shoulders and face set in a calm mien, though she must have been as rattled by his appearance as Lily. But then again, there was very little, if anything, to be frightened of in Remus Lupin.

Remus was a boy who looked like a strong wind might knock him over at any moment. Always sick or visiting sick family members, he missed more class than he seemed to make. Overall a good person, even if he never stood up to any of his friends, he was Lily's counterpart Gryffindor prefect.

"But they said there wouldn't be a meeting on the train!" Lily protested.

"It's to say goodbye to Cleopatra and Philip," he said, citing the Head Girl and Boy. "It's informal." He did not look too put out by that informality.

Lily began looking for her shoes. "Just wait a moment and I'll go with you. Sam, do you mind?"

"No. Say goodbye to Cleo for me," Sam answered. As soon as Lily found her shoes and put them on, she stood up and ran her hands over her clothes as though to straighten them out. She also took her long hair out of her ponytail and put it up again. Then she headed out the door with Remus.

"Thanks for telling me," she said as they walked.

"Not a problem," he replied. A silence fell over them reminiscent of the silence they endured during patrols: uncomfortable.

"What did you think about the O.W.L.s?" Lily asked, realising even as she said it that it was a stupid question, but she did not like silence and she knew that the one thing that Remus and she both really cared about was schoolwork.

"Some were difficult." Always awkward without his immediate group of friends, Remus never managed to maintain a conversation with Lily longer than a few sentences. In fact, she was really impressed that he'd come to collect her for this meeting at all. He never tried to speak with anyone who was not in his same year, house, and gender; actually, that, more than anything, frustrated Lily. Did he not think they were worthy of him or something?

"That Defence one was my worst." Lily continued as she tried to bridge the gap between Remus and herself. "I definitely failed the practical part even if the written part was easy. I mean, we learned about werewolves in third year and there were five questions about them!"

"Uh-huh," Remus murmured, scratching his left cheek.

"Well that test frustrated me to no end, led me to be rude to--" Lily stopped herself, knowing that talking about what had happened was not in her best interest.

"Rude to who?" Remus pressed. Oh, sure, now you want to ask questions, Lily thought.

"Someone I shouldn't have," Lily replied, but whether Remus would have continued to press the issue did not matter as because they reached the compartment that was their destination and the door opened to reveal Cleopatra Iverson.

"Lily!" Cleo squealed, running forward and giving her a hug. .

"Cleo!" she mock-squealed. When the older girl backed away, Lily could see that she might have had a few too many drinks to celebrate leaving school. "You okay to stand on your own?"

"Of course!" Cleo turned to Remus. "Remus!" And the hug attack happened once more.

"Hello," he said uncertainly. Lily smiled at him over Cleo's shoulder and for the briefest of moments, Lily's and Remus' eyes met, and they understood what the other was thinking. In that one moment they had an inside joke all their own. It was decidedly odd.

Then the moment passed.

Cleo led the two Gryffindors into the compartment. They were handed champagne flutes and told to drink up. Remus tried to say hello to a boy across the room, but Cleo forced both he and Lily into the centre of the room where she started chatting with various people. Along the way, Lily managed to hand her flute to a fifth year she didn't recognise (she hated champagne) without hindering the constant conversation flowing out of Cleo.

"You live in Brighton, don't you, Lily?" Cleo asked after they had suffered another round of hugs and goodbyes from the seventh year prefects that Cleo knew.

"A little outside it, in Whitehawk."

"My cousin's staying in Lower Bevendean for the holidays. Is that near you?"

"Depends where exactly."

"I want you to meet and show him around a bit. He's your age. Goes to school at Beuxbaton. Old family. You know the type," Cleo said. The Head Girl's face was becoming redder as she continued to drink flute after flute of champagne. Lily nodded, though she had no idea what Cleo was talking about.

"Well, I'll owl you about him later," Cleo said. An odd look passed over Remus' face, and Lily wondered why.

"Do you not like--"

"Joan!" Cleo exclaimed, cutting Lily off as she created another mess of tangled arms. Once she reappeared, the other girl straightened herself out and then looked at Lily. She looked vaguely familiar with her brown hair and brown eyes, wearing her green and silver scarf as if making a loud statement about her house and rank.

"I'm Joan Farral," she introduced herself.

"Lily Evans," she said, shaking Joan's hand.

"Remus Lupin." They too shook hands, though it seemed odd and uncomfortable.

"Joan is the greatest Potions student ever," Cleo gushed. Lily smiled and nodded at the Slytherin as Cleo, a Hufflepuff, went on and on about her. Cleo was easily the most outgoing girl in the whole of Hogwarts. She laughed, talked, and whispered loudly. No one was a stranger to her for long. Lily thought she was wonderful.

"Are you a seventh year?" Lily asked Joan when Cleo finally stopped talking and stumbled over to hug other friends.

"Sixth year," Joan said, crossing her left arm across her chest to touch her right elbow as she sipped her champagne.

"Sixth! What's your independent project?" Lily asked, excited.

"I'm doing a potion."

"Which one?" 

"It's called the Polyjuice potion," Joan said, grinning as Lily nodded for her to say more. "I had to start growing the ingredients in April, with the help of Professor Sprout, and it'll still take me until January to complete the whole thing, but I think that it's very interesting. It allows a person to change into another person for an hour. You only need one strand of hair from a person and you can change into them."

"But it wears off after an hour?" Lily asked. "That doesn't seem very helpful unless you were doing something really quickly."

"You can take the potion again within that expanse of time and the effect will remain indefinitely," Joan said. Lily thought that was an odd sort of potion.

"What made you decide--" a tap on her shoulder caused Lily to stop speaking mid- question. She spun around to find Matt McGrath standing behind her, smiling.

"Hi," Lily said.

"Matt." Joan nodded, her enthusiasm for the conversation gone. "I think I see Cleo getting into some trouble. I need to check on her."

"And I need to go say goodbye to Philip," said Remus, who Lily had practically forgotten him. Both he and the Slytherin sped away, and then Lily looked Matt, who glanced around the room.

"Quite a party, this is," Matt commented.

"It was better when there were cheese and crackers, but that Ravenclaw took the last cheese cube."

"Beggars can't be choosers," he replied. "I might not have been here at all if I hadn't overheard two people talking about it down the train."

"If it makes you feel any better, I wouldn't have known to come if Remus hadn't come by our compartment a little while after you left," Lily said. "Otherwise I too would have been left out. Sad as that is."

"Well, if you were to be left out too, I guess it's okay." They turned and went to one of the remaining tables to grab him a drink. "Remus isn't the most conversational of all people, is he?"

"He's shy," Lily said, choosing not to think overly much about the enigma that was Remus Lupin.

"Isn't he friends with James Potter and Sirius Black? And you say he's shy?"

"All right. Maybe shy is the wrong word. He's reserved with people he doesn't know." And silent and boring on patrols.

"I wonder why."

"I don't know," Lily said, placing her hand on Matt's arm and turning him to look at the girl behind him who was clearly throwing up in a corner of the compartment. "But I definitely don't want to be near her."

"I think she might be Head Girl next year, you know," Matt said, and they laughed together.

And thus the conversations in the room -- so interesting to them and so boring to anyone else -- continued. People moved from one group to another, eating here and drinking there, sitting down in a corner only to get up and leave to find other companions. But the most interesting thing about the prefect compartment was the diversity of the group that moved within it. These students had little in common from their upbringing: some were rich, some were poor, some were powerful, and some were weak. The only thing that bound them together was a title of prefect-a position that meant little in the real world-and their personalities. They were all overachievers.

While fifth years levitated champagne out of bottles and into their waiting mouths, while outside a war raged on and death-counts grew, there was nothing in that compartment to give hint to the troubled world outside this train. Instead, there were only easy conversations and good company.

In a few years, it will be impossible to bring these people into the same room. Their views on certain issues like Muggle-born rights will have been stoked by feelings of fear and love -- two of the most dangerous and seductive emotions -- leading these students to become bitter rivals. And that rivalry will lead to animosity and hatred. In a few years, half of these students, the brightest students at Hogwarts, will be marked for death by the Dark Lord and the other half will be the men and women assigned to kill them.

But the darkness will come later. At that moment there was only champagne and smiles, laughter and hugs, a warm enveloping feeling that let those who otherwise would never have spoken talk at length about seventh year projects and the History of Magic O.W.L. It was youth at its most perfect.


	3. The Changing of the Seasons

Settling back into life in the Muggle world became more challenging every year. While she didn't exactly want a Quidditch pitch on her block , Lily did miss the little things: chocolate pudding the way only house elves could make it; hidden passages and trick steps; the Game; the ding of a message parchment; and the ease of summoning an object instead of hunting all over her room for it. Her life at Hogwarts was, well, magical, and her humdrum, regulated life in her parents’ home couldn't compare.

It wasn't that Lily didn't like being home. She did. It was just different. While at Hogwarts she was a prefect who kept others from venturing out after hours, at home her parents set a strict curfew. At school she had good friends who laughed. At home she had...

"What have you done to our sofa? What have you done?" The piercing voice of Petunia Evans travelled through walls, doors, yards, houses, eardrums, and sanity. Lily liked to refer to it as the most annoying birdsong because it never failed to be the first thing she heard when she woke up.

"What?" Lily asked groggily, clawing her way out of slumber and into the paranoid world of her elder sister.

"The sofa is green," her sister said, as though that ought to have explained everything. Lily rolled over and stuffed her head under her pillow. Petunia yanked it away. "I have people coming over today, respectable university friends, and the sofa is green!"

Lily grunted, sitting up. "And green's the colour of devil worship and magic?"

"It shouldn't be green! Fix it!" shrieked her sister. Their mother came into Lily's room then with a basket of dirty clothes.

"Do you have anything for me to wash?" her mother asked, unaware of the tension.

"Mum, the sofa is green,” Petunia said.

"I know. Sylvia told me all about these covers that she uses on her sofas and I couldn't resist. Do you like the colour?"

" _You_ did it?" Petunia gaped. Her mother nodded. "But I'm having friends over, what will they say?"

"Hopefully that the sofas compliment the curtains perfectly, but they may just hate the idea," Mrs Evans said. Lily smirked and Petunia fumed.

"Fine," Petunia muttered, she turned to Lily. "Sorry for accusing you."

"No you're not. You're just saying that because Mum's here."

"Well, fine, if that's how you're going to be. I was going to ask you to stay and meet some normal people, but I realize now that you are too much of a freak to be able to talk to anyone."

"You mean you don't want me to turn them all into fungi?"

"Mum!" Petunia exclaimed.

"Lily and I are going to the market in a little while. We'll be away while your friends are here, I promise," her mother offered. "Be ready in ten minutes, Lily, and once more, do you have anything for the wash?" 

\-----------

Following her mother around the grocery, Lily's mind began to wander. How did magical people shop for their groceries? She thought Hogwarts grew their own food, but all wizarding families couldn't have gardens, could they? Did they conjure their food? Transfigure it? What if they did a poor job of it and the magic wore off after it was eaten?

"What are you thinking about, dear?" Faith Evans' voice pulled Lily out of her train of thought. She looked over to see her mother reaching for a jar of pickles on the top shelf. Mrs. Evans had to stand on the very tops of her toes to reach it and Lily quickly reached over her tiny mother and retrieved the desired jar.

"What's wrong with that jar?" asked Lily, pointing to the jar on the middle shelf, one her mother could easily reach.

"Nothing," her mother replied, taking the one from Lily's hand, "but this one's better. Everything's better if it takes a little effort."

"Like getting along with Petunia?" Lily said sourly, placing her right hand on the cart as Mrs. Evans began walking further down the aisle.

"Your sister is good person, Lily. She was anxious today to make a good impression on this Peter fellow. Seems she really likes him."

"I can't see why anyone should like Petunia," murmured Lily as she shuffled her feet.

Mrs. Evans gave her daughter a disapproving look. "It's comments like that which keep you and Petunia from becoming close."

"It's the fact that we hate each other thatkeeps us from becoming close," Lily said, watching the front right wheel of the cart wobble.

"All sisters hate each other at your ages," Mrs. Evans said, stopping to collect two boxes of dry noodles. "You'll grow to like one another."

"Only if she manages to get a completely new voice, face, attitude, personality, and posture," Lily chirped. Her mother lightly pinched her arm.

"It's your fault just as much as hers." They began to walk again, Lily rubbing her arm, irritated with Petunia. " We could all do without your snippy little comments that get her all riled up about magic. You goad her."

"It's just because she's annoying," Lily mumbled, bothered that her mother could not manage to see Petunia for what she really was: impossible to get along with. They turned into the main area in line with the cash registers and Lily scanned magazine covers as they walked.

"Quit complaining and start helping me. I need a bunch of bananas and a bag of oranges," Faith ordered.

"And I suppose you want me to find banana and orange trees, because that would take more effort than simply going to the fruit section?" Lily asked. Faith took her hands off the cart for a moment to grab Lily by the shoulders and point her in the direction of the fruit.

"No," Mrs. Evans said. " I'll take the fruit piled up in this direction, thank you."

Grumpy with the thought of her sister and annoyed at her mother for not understanding how much her sister hated her, Lily stomped off towards the bananas and oranges. Her entire holiday had been like this: one of the sisters accompanying a parent on errands so they could avoid one another. It had only been a few weeks and already Lily and Petunia were ready to draw and quarter one another.

If Lily had been honest with herself, which she normally avoided, she would have acknowledged that she was just as much to blame for her relationship with Petunia as Petunia was. Lily did bait and goad her sister. Lily yelled at her and let Petunia irritate her. But in Lily's mind, everything was Petunia's fault: Petunia was the one who blamed her for every small thing that went wrong, who spoke so stupidly, who could not manage to knock before entering a room, who ate so freaking perfectly.

Caught up once more in her own thoughts, Lily was lucky to have made it to the banana area in one piece. Without really looking at the fruit, Lily collected the bananas and headed off to the oranges.

"What's this for?" a teenage bloke asked his friend. Lily didn't look at them as she walked up and ripped off a bag, twisted the plastic with her forefinger and thumb, then whipped it through the air so as to cause it to poof out.

"Oh!" the bloke said. "Muggles have very different ideas."

Lily's head whipped around and she immediately noticed two things. The first was that the bloke was lightly tapping the dispenser with his forefinger and the second was that he was gorgeous. Absolutely, amazingly, perfectly gorgeous. With a sandy hair cut neatly short and blue eyes that almost hurt to look at because they were so lovely, he was one of the best looking males she had ever seen.

"But if they can't magically make these bags, don't they run out?" he asked his friend, another teenager. Lily stifled a laugh, making his friend, who had dark brown hair and sharp silver eyes, notice her. He ripped his friend's hands away from the dispenser, his eyes checking to see if anyone else had heard.

"He, er, grew up in South America... in a tribe... in a rainforest... with wolves," the friend said. Lily laughed shortly.

"Wolves?" she asked, shaking her head in amusement. He looked around again, obviously uncomfortable.

"His family doesn't go to stores," the friend said, trying and failing to fix his mistake.

"Yes we do, Ian," Gorgeous--as Lily had dubbed him--protested.

"Then why haven't you seen one of those before?" the friend said through clenched teeth, elbowing his friend in the arm.

"Because he's"-- Lily looked around and saw no one listening-- "a wizard?" The boys' eyes widened and they both began to smile when they heard that.

"Thank goodness," sighed the friend, sparing a moment to galre at his friend in irritation. "You want to be a bit more obvious next time?"

"You're a witch?" Gorgeous asked Lily, ignoring his friend and becoming living proof that Lily's Gorgeous-Brilliant Theory was dead on.

"Yes, I'm a witch. I'm Lily Evans," she introduced herself, smiling. She had to remind herself to not stare, but it was hard not to when she looked at Gorgeous.

"I am Christian Knowles and this is Ian Tailor," Gorgeous responded, smiling back and making Lily want to melt. Even his teeth were gorgeous. Was that even possible?

"I take it you aren't a Muggle-born?" Lily continued, still smiling that stupid school-girl crush smile that she hated. She wanted to stop. She really ought to stop.

"No," Christian shook his head, looking a little embarrassed.

"That's why he keeps running up to things in here and saying, 'How weird.'" Friend-to-Gorgeous, Ian, seemed to have regained his voice. Such a shame.

"But you are?" she asked Ian, feeling she ought to be polite and address the bloke even if she just wanted to mentally rake over his friend Christian again and again.

"My family's lived here for generations. Christian's staying for the holidays to improve his 'Muggle,' like you would go to Spain to improve your Spanish," Ian explained, making Lily smile there between the oranges and the apples.

"Well, I hope you're enjoying it here," Lily told Gorgeous. He looked oddly out of place among the fruit, but he shrugged slightly in an adorably reluctant way, as if he didn't want to say his real opinion of the experience.

"This place is very different than Bath," he replieds. Lily let it slide as she looked at him. How old could he be? Not that much older than she. What would it be like to kiss him? Oh. Lily needed to stop that thoguht right there. She didn't even know this bloke. She was in a store.

"Is that where you live? Bath?" Lily asked, trying to clense her mind of all improper thoughts.

Christian shook his head. "That's where my family lives, but Ian and I both attend a school in France: Beauxbaton Academy."

"France?" Lily asked. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ian smirk, looking back and forth between them, but chose to ignore that as she had absolutely no idea what it meant.

"We went to boarding school in France for primary school and continued there when we turned eleven," Christian explained, putting his hands in his pockets, which seemed like such an odd gesture for someone in their teens. Maybe he was older. But he couldn't have been if he was still in school, right? "I suppose you study at Hogwarts?"

Lily blinked; she knew nothing about their school so she assumed they would know nothing of hers. 

"Yes," she replied, swinging the bag of oranges slightly.

"Do you know Cleopatra Iverson?" Christian asked. Lily stopped swinging the bag.

"Of course, she was Head Girl. And a good study partner," Lily said. "She liked making first years welcome sweets."

"She's my second cousin twice removed," Christian said. Lily had no idea what a second cousin twice removed actually was, though she thought it might have meant she was his uncle's cousin through marriage or something like that. But Lily didn't really care. He was so gorgeous. Then it clicked.

"Oh!" Lily exclaimed. "You're Cleo's cousin! She told me that you'd be staying in Lower Bevendean. Said we ought to get it touch."

"So it's good that we've met," Christian-- beautiful Christian-- said. "Are you in her year?"

"Oh, no. I'm sixteen, turning seventeen in October," Lily said before realizing that their school might have different age requirements. "That means I'll be a sixth year this year."

"We're going to be seventh years," Ian said, still with that smirk on his face. Lily couldn't help but smile back at him. His tone rang of humor, as if he knew Lily had become instantly infatuated with his friend and thought the entire encounter rather hillarious.

"And you live close to here?" Lily asked, trying to tear her eyes away from Christian and look at the person she was addressing: Ian.

"Just a few blocks," Ian said, shrugging. He, Lily noticed, looked more natural in the fruit section than Christian. She wondered how she looked holding a bag of bananas. "It's odd we've never run into one another."

"I'd agree, but as we went to different primary schools and yours was in another country, I suppose it might have been more odd if we had run into one another," Lily said, smiling.

"I think I've seen you walking around, though. Redheads always seem to stick out," Ian said. "Do you have a dog? A small grey one?"

"She's black, but yes, I have a dog. Shooting Star."

"I like dogs," Gorgeous Christian said, coming back into the conversation because of course he liked dogs. He was perfect.

"Then you should--"

"I told you not to get lost," Lily's mother interrupted, rolling up beside her like an impending storm cloud that Lily wanted to wave off. Christian's eyes were blue like a mid summer sky and his hair glistened in the fake light of the market.

"I'm not lost. I'm making new friends," Lily said.

"For ten minutes? I thought you'd gone out to find those trees."

"I tried, but it turns out there aren't any banana trees within walking distance," Lily said. Her mother smiled sardonically at her and Lily turned back to Ian and Christian.

"If you'd really like to see my dog just owl me sometime and I'll bring her by," Lily said, hoping she was not being too forward and _dearly_ hoping her mother wouldn't say anything about her being too forward. Instead of either of those horrifying possibilities, Christian smiled at her, lighting up his face and revealing an even more splendid view than before.

"We will," he said.

"Oh, do you two go to Lily's school?" Mrs. Evans asked, smiling up at the blokes who were quite a bit taller than she.

"No, but we are wizards. How do you do? I'm Christian Knowles," Christian replied, shaking Mrs. Evans' hand. Then he turned to the star-struck Lily. "If you just give me your address I'll owl you."

Lily quickly took a pen and paper from her mother, wrote down her name and address, gave it to him, and then said goodbye. As they turned and walked away, Lily stared at their backs, sighing deeply when they turned the corner. Then she felt a tugging on her hand and looked down to see her mother pulling the bunch of bananas out of her hand and holding it up in front of her eyes.

"Wow, you found one of your items," Faith said with false pride. Lily laughed and then turned to her mother, her earlier annoyance forgotten.

"Wasn't he gorgeous?" Lily gushed. Her mother turned and went back to the banana stand, replacing the ones Lily had picked with another bunch. "It's like Michelangelo sculpted his cheekbones for me." Lily feigned a faint as her mother moved on to the orange row and began filling a bag.

"If he doesn't go to your school, how do you know him?" 

"He made a comment about Muggles and then fate led his voice to my ears," Lily said seriously. "Again, the eyes, did you see the eyes? So lovely. So blue. So perfect. Do you think he'll owl me, Mum?"

Faith Evans turned back towards her daughter, lifting her bag of oranges and counting them. "I'm sure he'll owl you. He seemed really interested in meeting Shooting Star."

"I hope he owls me because that would mean that I could see him some more. Just stand there and stare and stare," Lily stated dreamily.

"Yes, dear, that's very nice," Faith said, having finished counting and now looking at her daughter, but then her eyes went past Lily and widened when they noticed something behind her. Slowly Lily followed her gaze, rotating 180 degrees, hardly daring to breath, and then she saw Christian standing behind her looking both embarrassed and proud.

"I just came back to make sure I read this correctly." He repeated the address and Mrs. Evans affirmed the spelling as Lily couldn't speak through her shame and horror. Then he turned and left. Still staring at the spot where he had stood, Lily managed to barely murmur, "Oh eff me."

"Don't curse, Lily," her mother said, trying to hide her growing smile.

Lily was too overwhelmed by her embarassment to speak clearly, let alone find her mother's response bothersome. "I just-- I just-- and he was-- and I said-- and he-- he heard everything!"

Her mother laughed and Lily scowled.

"Oh, Lily, I'm sorry, but it was really very funny." Faith wrapped an arm around her daughter's shoulders and continued to push her cart as her daughter stared blankly out at nothing and contemplated the futility of dreams. 

\-----------

The moment Lily could, she wrote to Cleopatra, retelling the horrifically embarrassing story of meeting Christian. Cleopatra wrote back the next day to say that Christian was vaguely related to her mother through marriage.

_He came to family weddings and Christmas. Glad to hear he's having a good time. Always liked his father. One of the nicest, most gentlemanly relations I have. It's odd that you happened to meet him at the market. How is he? Besides looking "fabulously gorgeous" as you put it, is he having fun in school? I haven't seen him in four years. Though the way you tell the story, he'll never write you, so maybe I should ask someone else. Only joking. I'm sure he'll write._

_Good luck with school,_

_Cleopatra_

Sighing, Lily put the letter away. She would write back later. Right then all she wanted to do was wallow in self-despair. How could she have made such a fool of herself?

"Get up, lazy," snapped Petunia as she barged into the room without knocking.

"Get out, nosy," Lily snapped back without moving an inch.

"You're such a brat!" Petunia wrinkled her nose in disgust. "I don't know why our parents are so proud of you."

"You pretend you don't care, but I know you read Mum's _Daily Prophet_ s. Even if you pretend to hate magic, you can't keep your squinty little eyes away from it." Petunia's eyes got large and her hands curled into fists, but she reigned herself in.

"Dinner's ready," Petunia said and then stormed out of the room, slamming the door.

Lily rose to follow when she heard a pecking on her window, where a dark brown owl waited with crisp parchment around its ankle. A quick snack and annoyed huff later, she threw the letter on her desk to open later. She was too angry to think about writing anyone right now. Petunia had a gift for dispensing annoyance.

Dinner passed without occasion, both daughters kept their eyes locked on their food. To bother her sister, Lily ate with her elbows on the table and no napkin on her lap. Petunia twitched a lot.

Coming back into her room considerably happier, Lily opened the letter And nearly dropped it in shock. It was from Christian. He asked if he and Ian could stop by to see the dog. Still mortified and only slightly reassured by Cleopatra's letter, Lily replied that they could come by the next day at noon. 

 

\-----------

For all of Christian's talk about liking dogs, he did not seem too terribly focused on Shooting Star. As the three teens walked around the block, he asked Lily questions about school, friends, term's end, and things that had nothing to do with the dog. Lily, who had promised herself that she would not obsess over what a fool she had made of herself, spent the entire time beet red as she obsessed over what a fool she had made of herself. Not that that stopped her from realizing just how good-looking Christian was or loving the attention he paid her

"There's a giant lake at on the Hogwarts grounds?" Christian asked as Lily tugged on the leash to keep Shooting Star from stopping to sniff a passing dog.

"And a giant squid," Lily said once her small dog began walking again, "though I've only seen it once when I crossed the lake on the boats in my first year."

"Our school doesn't have anything as frivolous as that," Christian said. Ian elbowed him in the side and gave him an exasperated look, though Lily missed the exchange as she coaxed her dog away from a tree; Shooting Star seemed to want to stop. "It sounds interesting, though."

"Does your school have secret passageways?" Lily asked.

"No," Christian replied, looking amused by the idea. "Did you get that from some Muggle book about magical schools?"

"No," Lily said, very uncomfortable. "Hogwarts is full of secret doors and passages."

"Really?" Ian grinned, eyes bright. "Do you use them?"

"All the time. The fastest way to Potions and Transfiguration involves nearly three different hidden passages and trick doors. It's one of the best things about the castle." Lily smiled at the memory even as she felt a pang of longing for Hogwarts.

"Do people get lost?" Christian asked.

"If they aren't careful, some people get stuck in the vanishing stairs." Ian laughed and Christian looked thoughtful. "But that doesn't happen to anyone but the first year, really. Everyone else skips those steps instinctively."

"So it's for protection," Christian said, "all those passages and stairs and things?"

"I suppose it might have once been to trick intruders," Lily said, considering the origin of the passages for the first time. "But now they're used by all the students."

Lily had been looking at her dog while speaking, but when she looked up she saw that only Ian was standing next to her. She looked at him questioningly. He jerked his head to the left and Lily followed with her eyes. Christian had stopped to stare at a streetlight.

"What's the matter?" Lily asked, coming back towards him. He pointed at the lights.

"They change colour," he said as the light switched from green to yellow and then red.

"That's how the cars know when to stop," Lily explained.

"But how does the light know when to change?" Christian asked.

"It's on a timer," Lily said, but when he began asking about electricity and conductivity Lily was lost and had to admit that she had always just accepted electricity without question. She glanced over at him out of the corner of her eye and saw that he was staring at her. She blushed. Frick. That was so lame.

"You're very pretty," he said. Lily turned even redder.

"Thank you." Her eyes swept back to his face and again at his eyes. A smile seemed rare and hard given-- his face was not made for them-- but his blue eyes were so full of intensity that Lily could not stop staring at them.

A bark from Shooting Star led Lily to look in the direction of the noise. At the end of his leash, he was anxiously prowling a cat on the other side of the street. Ian, standing beside the dog, looked torn between walking to see the dog chase the cat and wanting to keep the dog safe.

 

\-----------

Two days later, Christian owled Lily to ask her if she would like to come with Ian and him to a "football game." He put it in quotations and even went on to say that he had never seen the game and could not truly believe anything like what he had been described could be very interesting. Lily wrote back and agreed to go even before she asked her parents, and that was how the majority of her holiday passed: agreeing to spend time with Christian no matter the obstacles in the way.

Lily found that doing normal, every day tasks with Christian were some of the funniest experiences in her life, though he saw nothing funny in them. The first time she had eaten over at Ian's house, she had offered to help make dinner. Mrs. Tailor, an old traditionalist, had told her not to be silly.

"You're a guest here," she went on to say. "And you'll sit right there as we finish up. We would've been done but Christian is having some difficulty." Lily went to watch Christian try to cook the Muggle way.

When he tried to peel a potato, Lily was convinced he would end up cutting himself and anyone in the same room. Mrs. Tailor seemed to concur with Lily's assessment as she quickly took over that task and sent him off to make the cookies, something she thought no one could destroy. And actually, despite the difficulty he had with every other kind of cooking, it turned out Christian knew how to bake. Christian made amazing cookies. Delicious chocolate and carmel cookies that Lily wanted to steal and take home.

After dinner, Lily said thank you to the host and hostess and said she really ought to be home soon. Christian asked if he could walk her. Not objecting at all to being alone with him, Lily agreed. The walk was marked with all sorts of small talk about the going-ons in the magical community-- who they thought would do well in Quidditch World Cup, scheduled to take place at the end of the summer.

Reaching her door, the two teenagers turned to look at one another.

"Thank you for bringing me home," Lily said.

"You're welcome," Christian replied. He stared at her a little too long. "Do you think it would be all right if I kissed you good night?"

Lily heart jumped and she nodded, not trusting words to come out correctly as she wanted to yell, _Hell yes!_ Christian leaned forward at a painfully slow pace. Finally Lily, not wanting to wait until he reached her, leaned forward and went up on her toes, meeting his mouth with hers. And then Lily's head was swimming for a few long seconds.

"Lily!" came the sharp shout of her father from inside the house. The two teens jumped apart, glanced at the house guiltily and then looked at each other, smiling.

"I'll owl you tomorrow," Christian said. Mortified and ridiculously pleased by the kiss, Lily barely managed to nod.

 

\-----------

Thus July was spent split between Lily's family and Christian. It might have also gone to Lily's friends, but Sam had flown to Hungary to visit her uncle all holiday, Christine and her mother had gone on a twelve country trip without an owl, and Tracy was apparently unable to get away from her Quidditch captain until the end of August. As it stood, Lily enjoyed spending most of her summer with Christian, a boy who was completely enamoured with her.

He still had moments that made Lily laugh, like when he walked into sliding glass doors or stared at televisions in store displays, reaching out to try and touch the "tiny people in the box."

All in all, Christian was smart (though not street-wise), good looking, and a complete distraction from the one person she was not supposed to be thinking about-- three things that were definitely on her "good" list. Plus it was lovely to come home with a flower he had bought for her.

When July ended and August came, everything in Lily's life seemed to fit like the perfect jigsaw puzzle. She was happy, healthy, and had an adoring boyfriend (she knew to call Christian this because on another one of their dates he had asked if she would be his girlfriend).

 

\-----------

"Christian's here again," Petunia said to her sister as she passed her bedroom door. Christian seemed to be the only point around which Petunia and Lily could agree: he was a decent boy. Not that that put Petunia and Lily on good terms, but it did give them a single topic abou which they could both talk without arguing.

Lily looked at her clock in surprise. It was nearly dinnertime and she had not planned to meet Christian. She stopped writing an especially long letter to Sam and walked downstairs and into the living room. There sat Christian with her mother, talking animatedly. They got along so well that Lily worried her mother might one day choose him over her if ever they got into a fight, but Lily's loyal father sat quietly in the corner of the room, half glaring at Christian, his baby girl's first boyfriend.

"Hi, Christian," Lily said.

"Hi, Lily," Christian said, standing to walk over and give her a kiss on the cheek. She blushed as her father harrumphed. She could not stop a smile from forming on her lips just at the sight of Christian. He looked so good. He always looked so good.

"We didn't have plans, did we?" she asked, looking up into those blue eyes and wanting to never look away.

"No, we didn't, but Ian and his family are going out to dinner and as it's our two month anniversary, I'd hoped we might eat together." Lily could see her mother over his shoulder, nodding. Lily hadn't even known they had an anniversary and was very excited to find that they did.

"That would be great," Lily responded. "Let me grab a jacket, then we can go." Lily turned and bounded up the stairs, bursting with excitement. She had an anniversary: a two-month anniversary.

She came back downstairs a few minutes later wearing a completely different outfit: a blue skirt that fell to her knees, a black sleeveless blouse, covered black shoes and a blue handbag. Her hair was down and sparkling (it was full of the magical straightening cream her mother had gotten her for Christmas that past year). But more than the outfit or the magical hair gell, she glowed because of her disposition: Lily Evans was completely and utterly happy. You see, Lily was sixteen and experiencing, for the first time, what it was to like a boy and have that boy like her in return. She didn't think things could get any better.


	4. Of Letters, Shopping, and Boys

 

8.8.74  
Lily... am back from Malaga... gorgeous... clear and cold and there were tons of people... how was the anniversary dinner? met a couple of blokes in Barcelona... Christine

PS. did you ever notice how close your boyfriend's name is to mine?  
PPS. when are you getting your books and things?  
PPPS. are you still a prefect?  
PPPPS. How many o.w.l.s did you receive?  
PPPPPS. ... um... bye

\---

9.8.74  
Christine,  
Yes, I notice the similarities between Christian's name and yours. I sometimes write the wrong one by accident. I'm going to buy my books on the 25th, with you when we meet at the Leaky Cauldron at noon. Yes, I'm a prefect still. And finally, you're strange. Learn to punctuate. The dinner went really well. The food was fabulous and Christian pulled out my chair and took my jacket. No bloke at Hogwarts would ever do anything like that. Ever. He is wonderful.  
Lily

\---

10.8.74  
Lily,  
How's the distraction?  
Sam

\---

11.8.74  
Sam,  
Really wish that you would quit calling Christian "The Distraction." I know what I told you at the end of term makes it seem bad, but he is really good-looking (REALLY good-looking), clever, and most certainly not just a replacement for He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named.  
Lily

PS. Let's meet on the 25th to buy our things for school. If you come over to my house at eleven, you can meet Christian before we go. Could you? Please?

\---

11.8.74  
Lily,  
You'd never believe the amount of hell being on the Quidditch team has caused me. Not only is the new captain still insisting on daily practices, but now she says that we have to tryout for the team when the new term starts... Practice I understand and even somewhat enjoy. It's good to see the team and I love flying but trying out again? Isn't that simply ridiculous? She says that all the extra practices are "causing productive team bonding," but so far all we've bonded about is the belief that she should not being making us try out again. And she shouldn't!  
Tracy

\---

11.8.74  
Tracy,  
We're meeting on the 25th at noon in the Leaky Cauldron to shop for supplies, and with regards to your complaints about trying out: go complain to someone else. You thrive on competition. That's why you insist that we play the Game.  
Lily

\-----------

At 11 o'clock on the 25th of August, a knock echoed through the Evans home. Lily jumped at the sound and sprinted across the room. Without bothering to see who it was, Lily threw open the door and enveloped the new arrival in a hug. Luckily for Lily, she had correctly assumed the person to be her best friend Samantha Caldwell, whom she had not seen all summer.

"Glad to see you, too," Sam said, smiling.

"I should hope so!" Lily ushered her into the house, shutting the door behind her, and loudly announced to her mother that Sam had arrived. Mrs. Evans came out of the kitchen and also hugged Sam hello.

"How was your summer, Sam?" Mrs. Evans asked.

"Really wonderful, thanks."

Mrs. Evans grinned and glanced at Lily. "Have you heard Lily's news?"

"About the boyfriend or about the O.W.L.s?"

"I was talking about the boyfriend, but her O.W.L.s were a wonderful too," Faith said, lying. Lily knew her mother was bursting at the seams to tell people her scores.

"She wouldn't tell me how many she received," Sam said.

"That's because I received a Troll on the Defense practical. A Troll. I'm traumatized," Lily said, cutting off their conversation.

Sam blinked. "Is that even possible?"

"Apparently." Lily shrugged as she leaned against the wall and crossed her arms over her chest.

"So, are you meeting Christian today?" Mrs. Evans asked, taking the cue from her daughter not to talk about O.W.L.s.

"Yes, it should be really interesting to see the bloke Lily spent more time with than anyone else this summer. Including me," Sam said, giving Lily a knowing look. The redhead looked away and felt briefly bad before remembering that Sam had spent all holiday in Turkey. They wouldn't have seen each other anyway.

"And her family," Lily's mum said. "In came her first boyfriend and out went the rest of the people in her life."

"At this rate she might even quit Hogwarts to--"

"Now that you two have had your fun," Lily said, cutting off her friend's ridiculous statement; Lily would never quit Hogwarts for anything. "I was about to offer Sam something to eat or drink, and then we're going over to Ian's."

"All right, Lily. Do you need money for your books and things?" Mrs. Evans asked.

"If I said yes, would you ask Dad if he'd given me any?" 

"Yes."

"Then no, I don't," Lily said. After a short detour into the kitchen, where Mrs. Evans insisted on giving Sam many little crackers and biscuits, the two girls headed to Ian's house.

"What'd you do this weekend?" Sam asked as they walked down the residential street. A young boy ran past them closely followed by his screaming sister. Lily smiled.

"This weekend?" Lily thought a moment, playing with the charm on her necklace. "We were walking by this fountain and Christian couldn't understand how it worked, but I couldn't explain it to him either except to say piping and water pressure and electricity. I sort of accept some Muggle things without thinking, but talking to Christian almost makes me feel like I ought to take Muggle Studies. Actually, he might know more than I do about most of this stuff because his questions are so detailed that it's hard to believe he only has a rudimentary understanding--"

"You're babbling, Lily," Sam said, giving her friend a sideways look as they turned left onto Ian's street. "And you're nervous."

"I'm not nervous," Lily lied.

"Oh, that's why you keep playing with your necklace?" Sam asked. Lily dropped her hand to her side, and they continued in silence until they were at the walkway that led to Ian's house. Then Lily turned to Sam.

"I need you to like him. I really do, Sam," Lily whispered, as if confiding a really dangerous and evil secret.

Sam looked concerned. "Why?"

"I don't know. I'm co-dependent," Lily said and then she turned and led her friend up the path that would lead to Christian. She knocked and waited a couple of moments before he answered.

"Hello, Lily," he said, sounding both surprised and happy. She smiled up at him (for he was much taller than she), then walked up and gave him a quick kiss hello.

"Hi, Christian. This is my friend Samantha. We're going shopping, and she wanted to meet you," Lily said, only sort-of lying. Why did he have to know Lily wanted to know her friend's judgment? Still, Lily pointedly avoided Sam's gaze right then.

"Hello, Samantha," Christian said, extending a hand. "I'm Christian Knowles."

"Knowles?" Sam repeated, not reaching out to shake his hand. Her eyes widened.

"Yes," he said, dropping his hand back to his side when he realized she wasn't going to take it. Lily looked back and forth between them. Was this encouraging or horrible?

"You study at Beauxbaton?" Sam asked. As Christian nodded, Lily tried to remember if she'd told Sam that.

"What's your surname?" Christian asked, his blue eyes scrunched in thought.

"Caldwell."

Christian and she both paused, considering each other, and briefly dipped their heads as Christian motioned for both girls to enter Ian's home. Lily knew both Sam and Christian were from long lines of wizards and witches, but hadn't expected Christian to ask such an odd question about it.

"Which classes are you taking?" Christian asked. Sam listed them. "Sounds interesting."

"Not really," Sam said, and it was unfortunate that she thought talking about class was uninteresting because for the remainder of the time the girls spent with Christian, that was all they talked about.

\-----------

"He's so dull," Sam announced, her eyes wide, as the two girls left Ian's to head to London and meet Tracy and Christine at the Leaky Cauldron.

"What?" Lily squeaked.

"He is good-looking, Lily--exceptionally so--, but he's not fast enough for you." Lily's heart dropped. "He didn't even notice you were teasing him about those mittens."

"He just doesn't laugh much," Lily said. She knew Christian didn't exactly understand Lily's brand of humor, but what did that matter? He was nice and kind and gorgeous. Shouldn't that have made up for the fact that he wasn't able to follow her jumpy conversations?

"He's not right for you, Lily," Sam said. "That, at least, I know. You need someone that can keep up with your train of thought, someone that wants to keep up with you in general."

Lily supposed that part of the reason she had been so nervous about the introduction between Christian and Sam had been because she had known it would turn out badly. Much as she liked Christian, she knew he would not fit in with her friends.

"I know his family," Sam said suddenly. "They live in France. What's he doing here?"

"Visiting his friend Ian."

\-----------

"Lily is never allowed to organize the book buying again," Tracy said as she elbowed yet another over-sized, older woman out of her path. They had not even reached the Leaky Cauldron yet and the four girls were already grumbling, tired, and ready to leave. The journey from their meeting place in Muggle London to the pub was one of the most challenging of Lily's life. She did not know how Muggles managed not to notice all of the extremely out-of-place animals and peoples marching around the streets.

And inside the pub was even worse: it was packed from wall to wall with witches, wizards, dwarfs, half-giants, balding elves, hags, and other assortments of odd people. In short, the Leaky Cauldron ranked among the top ten places Lily wished she could avoid at that moment.

"Why didn't someone tell me there was a meeting of the Confederation of Abnormal Magical Peoples in the Diagon Alley today?" Lily grumbled right before an angry-looking dwarf shoved her into a wall.

"C.A.M.P. always meets on the 25th of August," Tracy replied, yanking her purse away from a short, thin man with long fingers and a twitchy left eyebrow.

"If we make it into Diagon Alley, it'll be better," Sam said as she twisted out of the way of a warthog. After two more impressive moves around and through the chaos, Lily lost sight of her and tried to follow Christine (the tallest of the group) towards the back of the dank little pub. But soon the crowd also consumed Christine, and Lily was left to find her way on her own when Tracy ducked under one smelly wizard.

"Excuse me. Pardon me. Could I please pass by?" Lily asked, her manners coming most prominently to the surface as she refused to knock into anyone without a word of apology. The wall, which had not seemed too terribly far away at the beginning of Lily's quest, did not appear to be growing any closer as Lily continued sidestepping and shuffling towards it.

A hand latched onto Lily's arm and yanked her in the wrong direction, though that was not exactly her biggest concern as she found herself facing a woman with five different moles growing out of her left eyelid. No, at that point her biggest concern was keeping herself from screaming out in fright and running rudely away.

"What's abnormal about you?" she asked in a thick German accent.

"I'm just passing through. Excuse me." She tried to tug her arm out of the woman's grasp, but the elder, grosser woman held tight.

"Not all right," she said. "Must be abnormal to be here."

Lily met the woman's gaze and pleadingly said, "I'm only going to Diagon Alley."

Then the most peculiar thing happened. The woman's eyes flashed bright orange and her hand was gone. She backed away from Lily, averting her gaze as she said, "Sorry. Didn't know."

"It's all right," Lily replied, rubbing her arm where the hand had been and moving away from the stranger.

"I didn't know," the woman said again before turning and hobbling away.

Lily, not wanting to waste any time thinking about the strange woman or her attack, spun around and ran for the back wall. This time manners were ignored and feelings were hurt. Elbowing, kicking, shoving, and nudging became Lily's main weapons as she forced her way out of the pub and into the alley. The doorway was open when Lily arrived and she was grateful to find a place to breathe in the alley.

Resting her hands on her knees, Lily slowed her breathing and looked around the lopsided alley.

Like every other time she had come here, Lily was amazed by the sheer madness of it all; stores did not line up properly--actually nothing seemed particularly normal or ordered there-- and Lily loved it. The whole ordeal of shopping in Diagon Alley was still a thrilling experience for Lily, a Muggle girl who had always wanted adventure and excitement but never had the opportunity to get it.

While standing near the entrance to the Alley, Lily looked around and tried to spot her friends, not seeing any of them near her. In the meantime, two blokes walked up and asked her if she knew the way to the Quidditch supply store.

"Sorry, no," she replied, her eyes still scanning the surrounding area.

"I'm Alex, by the way," the boy closest to her said, inclining his head and continuing the conversation Lily did not want to have.

"Todd," said the boy farther to the left.

"I'm Lily." Why were they talking to her? Shouldn't they have been trying to find their Quidditch store? Where were her friends?

"What are you looking for?" one of the boys asked. An old man walked past with a walking stick that looked like it might once have been a large spear.

"My friends. We were separated in the pub," Lily replied. If that man brought the walking stick down on someone's foot, it would puncture it.

"Oh," the bloke said. Watching the old man, Lily accidentally spotted Christine walking amongst the crowd, bumping into people and not really noticing. Lily shouted her friend's name and waved her arms to get her attention. The blonde girl noticed and made her way over.

"Wasn't that a joy?" Lily asked Christine sarcastically, nodding over at the still-filled-to-capacity pub.

"No," Christine said, walking up. "Not at all."

"Yeah, that was pretty much the worst pub experience of my life so far. An old woman with too many warts attacked me," Lily said, making an unhappy sound. The blokes, who Lily had nearly forgotten, introduced themselves to Christine, but she didn't return the favor.

"Where are Sam or Tracy?" she asked Lily, who was a little shocked by her rude behavior.

"I don't know."

"We need to start shopping."

"You looking to buy anything in particular?" asked the bloke to Lily's right. She couldn't remember what his name was, though he'd just introduced himself again. Honestly, shouldn't he and his friend have found the supply shop yet?

"School supplies," Lily replied, seeing that Christine wasn't going to respond.

"Your parents don't have people who do that?" the one on the left asked. Lily wanted to roll her eyes, but manners kept her from doing so. Christine did not have this problem.

"Ew," Christine said.

"He didn't mean it like that," the boy on the right said, elbowing his friend in the side. The hell he didn't, Lily thought, smiling her practiced-for-dumb-people-smile. "It's just that--"

"I see Tracy," Christine interrupted before giving a sharp yell to grab her friend's attention.

"Where is she?" Lily asked.

"There," Christine said, pointing to the ground. Lily looked down, and saw Tracy crawling through the throngs of people pouring out of the Leaky Cauldron. When she saw Christine and Lily looking at her, she scrambled to stand up and walk over, dusting off on the way. Lily couldn't help but smile at the sight.

"Don't say anything. Not one word. I made it, didn't I?" Tracy said, sounding defensive. "Where's Sam?"

"I don't know, " Lily said.

"But Lily has already caught to eye of two S.A.L.s," Christine noted.

"S.A.L.s?" Lily repeated.

"Surprisingly amazing looking lads," Tracy explained, peering around to see if she could find which blokes Christine was talking about.

"That's not the right acronym for that. You'd need two ls," Lily said.

"We decided that was too long," Tracy said. "Which ones were they?"

"No one. I'm a sweaty mess of grossness right now. I don't even want to be near me at this moment."

"Were they waiting for you to talk to them?" Tracy asked.

"They needed to find a store," Lily said.

"Sure. I believe you," Tracy said sarcastically, then looked around. "Where's Sam?"

"Here," Sam said. Tracy, Christine, and Lily turned toward the voice and saw Sam emerge from the ice cream shop with a cone of chocolate ice cream. She looked ridiculously and unfairly put together even though she had to have shoved her way through hordes of strange creatures too.

"Sometimes I strongly dislike you," Lily muttered, walking up to Sam and taking the ice cream from her.

"That's mine, you thief," Sam said.

"Not anymore, obviously," Lily said, smiling and licking the cone, "but thank you for buying me such a great treat."

"Stealing other people's ice cream cones is never okay. Never," Sam said, reaching out for her ice cream. Lily moved out of her reach.

"Duly noted," Lily said, walking down the Alley beside Sam with Tracy and Christine following behind them, still talking about whether or not the blokes were actually interested in Lily.

\-----------

The girls collected (or exchanged) their gold at Gringotts, bought Potions supplies, extra quills, books, a cauldron for Christine, a broomstick supply kit for Tracy, a cat for Sam (whose last pet, a frog, she had given as a gift to her younger brother for his upcoming first year), and were now debating the necessity of buying robes.

"I don't need new robes. Mum ordered me some from a catalog," Lily announced, tired of walking around with so many packages and desperate for a seat.

"I don't need new robes either," said Tracy, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet.

"Everyone needs new robes," Christine replied.

"How about we sit with the bags somewhere while you two go buy robes?" Lily asked. Sam and Christine shrugged.

"All right, you can sit at Fortescue's," Sam decided, handing Lily her bags as Christine gave hers to Tracy. The extra weight would have been unbearable if the shop had been much further than it was. As it happened, the girls made it to an empty table and collapsed.

"I'm going to buy the largest thing of ice cream I can," Lily announced. "Do you want me to get you anything?"

"Oh, no, thanks. Have to stay in shape for Quidditch."

"You sure?" Lily asked, not believing anything worth not eating ice cream. Then again, she had only played football until she was eleven and if she'd wanted to become serious about the sport, she probably would have had to start eating healthful foods too.

"Yep, Nancy'd kill me if I gained weight after all the training we've done," Tracy said.

Lily tried to think of a Nancy that she knew and could only remember one. "Nancy Adams?"

"Yeah, the new Gryffindor captain."

"She's the slave driver from your letters?" Lily asked, surprised. Nancy never seemed obsessive about anything before.

"She has a field at her estate, you see, so we all go over there for an hour or two every day and work out different moves. She's insane, absolutely barmy. The only good thing that's happened is that we've spent so much time together this holiday that weÃ•re almost seamless, which makes it less likely that she'll choose other people for the team," Tracy said, her dull blue eyes shinning as they always did when she talked about Quidditch.

"Did I just hear the words 'barmy' and 'insane' come out of your mouth, Tracy McGrath? Does that mean you're talking about everyone's favorite Quidditch captain?" asked a teasing voice to Lily's left.

The two girls looked over in the direction of the voice and saw James Potter (he-who-Lily-would-not-think-or-dream-about-anymore) walking toward their table flanked by his usual flunkies. Lily's heart skipped a few beats. He looked fabulous, and he'd clearly grown. Then her eyes narrowed as she remembered that she didn't care how he looked. She was getting over her crush on him. How dare he come back and make her think of him?

"The one and the same," replied Tracy, standing to give James a friendly kiss on the cheek to say hello. Lily had already been standing, but then she began to feel awkward. "Enjoying your day off?"

"Oh yes," James said, "and it's always good to hear someone talking about Nancy with the proper adjectives."

His best friends--three blokes in their year--stood a little behind him, two looking uncomfortable, and the third looking bored before he whispered something to the other two, making them all laugh as James and Tracy kept talking. Since when had they become such good friends? Since when had he cut his hair that short or worn that shirt that made him look so good? Why couldn't Lily find him unattractive?

"So you don't see enough of me during practice every day, you followed me to Diagon Alley as well?" Tracy joked.

"Actually, this is a complete coincidence. I quit stalking people after the whole 'cursed if within sight of Julie' fiasco back in third year." Tracy laughed, sharing a joke with James. Lily played with her necklace. Since when did they share jokes? Since when had they even spoken except to tease one another during a Quidditch game? Never. That's when.

"You must have decided to stalk me," Tracy said. "Why else would you voluntarily come here on the twenty-fifth of August?"

"Best day to shop," James responded with an easy, confident smile.

"I'm sure." Tracy looked dubious.

"Trust me," James said, his hazel eyes sparkling as his friends started to wander away toward the windows of the Quidditch supply shop. "So why are you here?"

"Lily chose the date," Tracy said, nodding at Lily, who stood twirling the charm on her necklace. When their eyes met, James looked uncertain (a first in Lily's experience), and Lily felt uncomfortable. They were both remembering an awful incident at the end of their last year, one that would help shape the people they would grow up to become. Then, at the same moment, they overcame their shame and became angry. For Lily it was the kind of anger that kept her on her toes, kept her sharp and cutting. For James it was the kind of anger that made him exuberant and wild.

He looked really good. As good as Christian? Better.

"I'm surprised you'd mingle with the riff-raff," he said to Lily.

"What? You--"

"Are you coming tomorrow?" Tracy asked James, cutting off Lily's response, and Lily thought she saw something pass between Tracy and James when their eyes caught, but could not be sure.

"To practice?" he asked.

"No, to the party after practice at the McDougals'."

"Maybe. I don't know," James answered vaguely. Then he glanced back at his friends, noticing how far they had strayed. "They're a bit antsy. I best be off. See you at practice, Tracy. Bye, Evans."

"See you at school," Lily replied automatically, her manners never letting her ignore a polite goodbye. As soon as the boys were out of sight, Lily turned and looked at Tracy.

"Since when have you and James Potter been friends?" she asked.

"I told you in my letters," Tracy said. "I spend every day with the team. They're like my extended family at this point."

Tracy shrugged as if it should never have mattered, and for Tracy, who knew nothing of Lily's crush on James, it was nothing. For Lily, who had been harboring this annoying secret fascination with him for almost a year and a half now, it meant utter disaster. She would never get over him if he hung around with one of her best friends, and she desperately needed to get over him.

"Why are you playing with your necklace like that?" Tracy inquired, trying to change the subject but only managing to make Lily even more uncomfortable as she realized she was still nervous around James. But she was dating Christian--Christian who was kind and considerate and would never in a million years play a prank--so how could she still like James? Frick! She was supposed to have gotten over this crush, but it seemed only to have intensified.

"James cut his hair," Lily said at last.

"I didn't think you'd notice," Tracy replied, opening and looking at her broomstick servicing kit for what seemed to be the hundredth time that day.

"It's not as wild."

"I'm sure it's easier for him to manage," Tracy said, still not understanding what Lily was saying. Lily, you see, was hoping he had cut his hair for her. It was possible, wasn't it? No. No, James was nothing to her. Christian was what ought to have occupied her thoughts. Christian was amazing. James was nothing except a show-off and a bragger-- a bragger who had cut his hair and managed to make Lily's heart skip a beat.


	5. Finding Her Niche

The worst part of going back to school was the packing: the folding and organizing of Lily's robes, quills, parchment, books, and various other supplies. Luckily for Lily, her mother was neurotic. Quickly pulling out cardboard dividers and labels, Faith Evans made short work of unloading and reorganizing the mess that Lily called her trunk.

"How did you expect to find anything in here?" Faith asked with a grunt as she dislodged a sock out from under her daughter's cauldron.

"I've never had any problems before," Lily said, taking her blouses and refolding them on her bed.

"That's because I've repacked your things every year since you were eleven, but now you're sixteen years old and you ought to be able to-- what is that?" Lily's mother pointed at a misshaped grey lump that appeared to be inching out of the trunk. Lily poked it cautiously with her wand and a pink spark shot through the air. Then everything was quiet.

"Maybe you should put that in the backyard," said Lily in an off-hand sort of way.

"What? Oh, God, is it alive?" Mrs. Evans ran over to the window, opened it, and threw the grey thing into the street. "We are unloading this trunk."

Lily groaned and threw herself onto her bed. A loud clang resonated in the house, but Lily didn't care. Her father was watching the news and who really cared if Petunia jumped a little? Her older sister had been nothing but spiteful, mean, and full of horrible accusations since Lily came home. While both the Evans adults claimed they would grow out of their dislike of one another, Lily doubted she could ever find anything respectable, good, or even interesting in her snotty sister.

"What are you doing about the boy?" asked Mrs. Evans as she pulled out the wadded robe Lily had wrapped her quills in.

"Which boy?" Lily asked, because she embraced avoidance. It was a gift.

"The one you spent more time with this summer than your own family. The one you think is dreamy and cute and just perfect," Mrs. Evans teased, filling the bottom of her daughter's cauldron with socks to conserve space.

"Oh right," Lily said, unsure of the right answer. Christian had suggested they continue dating, owling each other daily, but Lily didn't know if she could do that. Yes, he was cute. Yes, he was polite. Yes, he was the perfect boyfriend, but at the same time, her stomach didn’t do flip flops around him. Her heart didn’t jump to think of him, and while Lily did not want to admit it, Sam's negative opinion of him had really been the beginning of the end.

"So you won't be seeing each other during the school year?" Mrs. Evans asked as she finished filling the cauldron and moved to position it in the trunk.

"I don't know what to do, Mum." Lily rolled over on her bed and threw a pillow over her head.

"Break it to him gently."

"But he's so right for me. He's everything I need, Mum. Everything I should want."

"But not everything you actually want," said Mrs. Evans softy, putting down the parchment she was organizing and moving to sit on her daughter's bed. She softly stroked Lily's hair. "And that's all right, Lily. You're young."

"I don't know why I don't want to keep seeing him, Mum. I have no idea," Lily said. And that was a bit of a lie. She had a feeling that her annoying obsession with James had something to do with it, but she was trying to ignore that fact for the moment.

"It's hard," Faith said.

"He bought me a necklace," Lily said, pulling the charm out from under her blouse.

"That's lovely," whispered Faith as she leaned forward and took it into her hand. And it was true. The necklace was gorgeous, and a very thoughtful gift. He said he noticed the way she always played with her necklace and wanted to get her one that would last. The charm was a phoenix that looked varying shades of red throughout the day.

"I hate that I'm bored of him," Lily said.

"Bored of him?"

"Well, that isn't exactly what I mean. It's just that when I see Ian and him coming up the walk, it's Ian that I'm excited to see because we have so much fun together. Christian and I don't ever laugh."

"You don't laugh?"

"No. He just. He isn't--" James, Lily wanted to say. She groaned, grabbed a pillow and tried to smother herself to death with it. Why did she have to compare Christian and James? Why couldn't she accept the boy who came by every day at five for a walk? Why couldn't she love the way he asked if he could hold her hand? Why couldn't his polite conversation be enough? 

 

 

 

\-------

The end of the first day of classes -- the third day back at school -- found Lily lying around an armchair in the corner of the common room. Her legs dangled off the armrests as she stared half-heartedly at her Potions book, not really bothering to read.

Actually, she should have been studying. She should have been pouring over her notes from the last five years, not to mention memorizing the entire book. According to Professor Darcy, that was the only way to even begin to prepare for the N.E.W.T.s. The tests were two years away and professors were already making Lily nervous about them; the sixth years would have pre-N.E.W.T. exams at the end of the year-a staff-run version of the real exams. Add to that the stress of designing her seventh year independent project by the end of March-- a project required of all students that allows them to study the subject of their choice in depth-and it resulted in a lot of stress piled onto Lily on the first day of classes.

To tell the truth, Lily was not really thinking about school. Actually, the thought hardly crossed through her mind except in passing. Mainly she let herself daydream, thoughts ranging from the realm of her desire to play a little football to thoughts of writing with a ballpoint pen. Occasionally she reflected upon her sister with bitterness and her teachers with little less than scorn.

Why did they want her to do so much? Why didn't they consider that maybe she had not spent her summer revising? Why didn't they ever suppose that she spent her time kicking a football and dating an extremely good-looking wizard who did not understand the concept of a traffic light?

Laughter brought her back into realty and she looked over at the source of the noise: a large group gathered in front of the portrait hole (blocking it, of course). Upon closer examination, Lily saw Tracy conversing with the rest of the Quidditch team. Her dull blue eyes gave off an impression that screamed angel! which contrasted sharply with her skill with a beater's bat and bludger. She was not malicious, just extreme gifted at hitting a magical ball at people's heads.

Another ripple of laughter passed through the group and split them enough that Lily could see the source of the noise: James Potter. She turned her eyes away. The last thing she needed was anyone seeing her staring at the boy.

Not that she was spiteful (well, okay, maybe a little), but the Quidditch team had barely spoken to one another the year before. They hardly worked like a team the previous year: the keeper kept things out of the hoops but never passed the quaffle back to the chaser in the best position; the chasers could hardly pass to one another without a mistake being made (a quaffle bouncing off a bludger they had not anticipated or a person thinking they were being passed to and when the ball ailed over them, trying to jump off the broom for it); the beaters hit the bludgers at whichever player on the opposite team seemed to be flying quickly (which resulted in many hurt seekers and many occasions with both bludgers were aimed at the same person); and the seeker caught the snitch regardless of whether it meant winning the game or not. Admittedly, that might have been the reason that were trounced by all the other teams, but why were they so chummy all of the sudden?

"Hey, Lily, you going to rejoin the world of the living anytime soon?" asked a voice next to Lily's head, making the redhead start. She had been very immersed in her thoughts.

"I am in the world of the living," Lily said, addressing the person who was now leaning against the back of Lily's chair. Looking up at the speaker, Lily saw a face she could recognize in the dark: that of her best friend Samantha Caldwell.

"You're in some world, but it isn't the one I'm in," Sam commented. While Lily lay ungraciously across the chair, Sam looked perfectly composed leaning against the same piece of furniture. Sam always managed to seem perfectly composed. How annoying.

"I'm right here," Lily said stubbornly, refusing to acknowledge that she had let her mind wander. She scrunched up her face into a look of complete childish petulance.

"And there's that lovable face I have come to know and love." Sam grabbed Lily's chin and wiggled it around until Lily broke free and glared daggers at the black-haired girl. "You love me."

"I doubt that," Lily said.

"Then why am I your best friend?" Sam asked condescendingly.

"Eat worms," Lily snapped. Sam blinked.

"What?"

"Nobody likes you, everybody hates you, why don't you go eat worms?" Lily sang. "Eat worms is short for 'nobody likes you.'"

"You're barmy, you know that?" Sam asked. "Most people don't make up songs about worms." Lily shook her head sadly. These poor, poor magical-born fools.

"Why exactly are we friends?" Lily asked.

"Because I'm pretty?"

"Try again, Ugly," Lily replied, though in fact her friend really was quite good-looking with her black almond eyes and hair.

"Because my marks are outstanding?" Sam continued.

"Not as good as Gertrude Wrightman's and we've never spoken," Lily said. "And those are your best attributes, so you're screwed."

"Then why are we friends, exactly?"

"Mainly because of the five galleons your family sends me at the beginning of each month."

"And I told them not to bribe anyone until seventh year."

"You'll have to talk with them about that," Lily replied, lounging back down across the chair -- her red hair falling almost to the floor. She ran her hand through it, enjoying the feel of it today. Laughter echoed through the room once more and Lily did not have to move to know where it came from.

"I hate that Tracy's so friendly with the team," Lily said, changing the subject quickly and not caring.

"Blame Nancy Adams. She basically forced them all to stay at her house and practicing on her family's pitch."

"Through blackmail?" Lily asked. 

"Practically. Said that no spot on the team was guaranteed, that everyone would have to try out again this year if they wanted to be on the team. It was supposed to form team cohesion. All it did was ally them against her."

Lily briefly wondered why her shyest friend knew more about this than she did. “Huh."

"I'm surprised you didn't notice Tracy's absence," Sam said pointedly. "You live close to one another."

"It's not like we didn't visit. She usually comes to mine," Lily said shortly.

"Are you sure you just didn't notice because you were busy with Rebound Boy--"

"His name is Christian."

"You were so busy with him that you didn't notice her lack of letters over the holidays, didn't bother to write her often enough, or didn't care enough to notice a lack of returning owls. And now we've been in school for three days and you haven't managed to ask one of your best friends about her holiday?"

"I vaguely recall getting a few letters about it and James Potter talked to her when we went to Diagon Alley, but I didn't think anything of it. She's Tracy. People like her." Lily did not feel like rehashing the horrible experience of seeing James again and realizing just how not over him she was.

"Her brother isn't such a fan of her."

"Matt?" Lily asked. "Are you kidding? They're best friends."

"No, no. I meant Will. He's an uppity little first year."

"I take it he and Chad aren't the best of mates?" Lily asked. Sam's younger brother, Chad -- the one to whom she had bequeathed her frog at the beginning of the year -- was a first year like Will McGrath.

"That's the problem. They are. Stupid Ravenclaws."

"Actually. I heard they're supposed to be highly intelligent."

"Shut it, you. Why don't you go back to thinking about N.E.W.T.s or Petunia or James Potter?"

Lily tensed. Sam knew she didn’t like talking about James or her crush on that moron. Ever. And for Sam to imply that Lily thought about him at all after she'd promised Sam she would move on this past summer-- that was just ridiculous. As if Lily would let him occupy even a single thought in her head simply because he was smart, funny, good-looking, clever, and... basically perfect. Frick. She had to stop thinking like that. He was also obnoxious, bigheaded, and cruel to his fellow students. He had made a fool of her last year. He was not perfect. He was not perfect. He was... anything but perfect. Please let him be anything but perfect.

"Is it that bad, Lily?" Sam asked, taking her silence to mean more than Lily wanted it to mean.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Lily said stubbornly, letting herself tip even further to towards the floor and enjoying the sensation of blood rushing to her head.

"Is he in all of your classes?" Sam asked, neither taking the hint nor letting the stupid subject go away.

"Practically." Lily sighed.

"And that upsets you because you like looking at him and feel you aren't being loyal to Rebound Boy?"

"Christian and I broke up," Lily said. Yet another thing she did not really want to talk about.

"Oh," Sam said. Lily didn’t need to lift her ever-heavier head to know she was smirking.

"Your concern is overwhelming."

"I don't have to pretend to be upset that you broke up with a boy who wasn't right for you," Sam said.

"Yes you do."

"Why? You don't seem very upset." Sam moved to sit on the floor in front of Lily's upside-down face. Lily's eyes were beginning to feel the pressure and so she rolled over and draped her arms in front of her and relieving the pressure in her head.

"Of course I'm upset," Lily said, feeling slightly dizzy even though she was practically lying down flat. "I dated him for months."

"But..." Sam pushed.

"But what?"

"But why did you break up with him?"

"How do you know he didn't end it?" Lily asked, irritated that Sam knew her so well. Lying to strangers was easier than lying to best friends. Sam would never believe Lily had broken up with him for any reason other than that she was still hung up on James.

"You're avoiding the question," Sam pointed out.

"What question?" asked Christine O'Connell, the other female Gryffindor sixth year. Her sudden entrance caused both Lily and Sam to turn towards her. In Lily's case, she turned a bit too quickly and fell off the chair. And before Lily could right herself, Sam began talking.

"About why Lily broke up with the Dufus.”

"You broke up with Hottie?” Christine asked, hurrying closer, her long blonde ponytail swishing behind her.

"Why can't anyone call him by his proper name?" Lily moaned as she pushed herself onto her hands and crawled back into her chair.

"Was he a bad kisser?" Christine asked. The tall, blunt blonde believed relationships to be a means to an end, something that was okay unless it became boring. Then it had to end. Quickly.

"No!" Lily exclaimed. "I just-- it just-- I didn't want a long distance relationship." Christine nodded, understanding the need to end a relationship that would tie Lily to a boy she could never see.

Meanwhile, Sam was obnoxious and said, "I think you're lying."

"What?" Lily asked, shocked.

"That isn't why you put an end to it," Sam said.

"Then why did I break up with an absolutely gorgeous boy?" Lily asked, trying to sound like she didn’t know the reason for the split herself (trying to pretend like he wasn't standing a short ways away laughing with the Quidditch team).

"You fancy someone else!" Christine exclaimed, hands shooting into the air as Sam smirked.

"No I don't!" Lily yelled, shocked that Christine had just figured that out. Lily's exclamation carried through the room and caused more than a few pairs of eyes to turn towards her. Christine, who was notorious for being blindly single-minded, didn’t notice the attention. Sam, not liking attention of any sort, sucked her face forward, hiding behind her glossy black hair. Lily waved and smiled at the room as a whole, as if to pretend that she had meant to get their attention.

"Who do you fancy?" Christine pressed, definitely not getting the hint that Lily didn’t want to talk about this.

Lily turned to look at her friend. "No one, Christine."

"Liar," she said.

"Are you and Rebound staying in touch?" Sam asked, trying to pry information out of Lily while she was defensive and off balance.

"Sort of."

"Sort of?" Sam asked.

"Yes. Sort of."

"Who do you like?" Christine popped in. The other two girls ignored her as she stared thoughtfully at the wall.

"And Christian isn't weeping over the broken relationship?" Sam asked.

"He's a boy," Lily replied, not wanting Sam to know the truth: Christian had been devastated by the break up. It made her wince to think about his face when she'd-- no she wouldn't think about that.

"Right."

"Who do you fancy?" whined Christine.

"No one," Lily sang. Lily got up, shaking herself off and trying to smooth out the many wrinkles in her robes.

"Why are you avoiding the question?" Sam asked.

"I'm not; I have a prefect meeting to go to," Lily said.

"Ew," Sam and Christine exclaimed together.

"I know." Lily started for the portrait hole.

"See you after dinner then," Sam said.

"Wait. Who does she like, Sam?" Lily heard Christine ask before she left the common room. 

 

\-------

Prefect meetings, it must be noted, were among the most boring, tedious, useless pastimes in the history of the world.

Tapping her quill mindlessly against the desktop, Lily let her mind wander. Her father, she knew, was on some sort of committee at work that often met to discuss and decide upon important matters. After fifth year she had quietly taken him aside and told him how very grateful she was for his work.

_"Why is that?" Mr. Evans had asked, looking worried._

_"Because I'm now on a board at school and I know how horrible it is, and I'm so sorry that you have to endure that just to be paid, and if you want to quit, I'll understand."_

_"No," he had replied, laughing, "I don't want to quit. Thank you though."_

_"I'm not joking. Honestly. It's one of the most painful experiences of my life. Nothing is accomplished... ever!"_

And that statement was never truer than during the first meeting of the year, when the fifth years were introduced to the idea of what the prefects were expected to do. Lily remembered the meeting the year before-- her fifth year. She had fallen asleep. It had been a blur of graphs and charts and magical parchment from McGonagall. But at least last year, Cleo had been there to interrupt every few minutes with funny commentary. Now it was just Matt (Tracy's brother who had been made Head Boy) and the Head Girl, who Lily was sure had been introduced, though she must have missed it.

Out of the haze of words, Lily vaguely heard her name and looked up to see McGonagall glaring at her. There was complete silence in the room save for the clicking of Lily's quill against the desk. Lily stopped that movement and had the grace to look embarrassed.

"If I am boring you, Miss Evans, you may leave," replied the deputy headmistress in a tone that suggested if Lily left, she would not be taking her head with her.

"No. I'm fine. Your explanation of patrols made me think of a dozen logistical issues that I’m trying to brainstorm through," Lily replied enthusiastically.

"I have not mentioned patrols yet, Miss Evans." The professor's lips thinned.

"Oh. Well, then, I lied. Or I was joking. Whichever you prefer to believe," Lily announced, smiling.

"Let it not happen again."

"Of course not," Lily said primly. McGonagall nodded curtly and went back to explaining the intricacies of some horrible minute prefect duty. Lily went back to staring at the wall and tapping her quill.

"If you were a bloke, she'd have thrown you out," Kevin Creggie whispered into Lily's left ear. "That was brave."

Lily rolled her eyes. It had not been brave. It had been an act of desperation. She needed to liven up these meetings. She needed to hear some sort of laughter or shock or something from these stuck up students. She looked around the room, taking in the faces of the students looking so avidly at McGonagall. They were the elite of the school, the children who pushed themselves the hardest, who fought the hardest to prove themselves. They were the children who would kill one another if it bolstered their chances of being Head Girl or Boy.

She didn’t know what she and Remus were doing here. Well, she knew why they were here— who else could Dumbledore have picked from their year and house?

Samantha was probably the most put-together person Lily knew. She followed rules. Never had a wrinkle in her robes and always knew where she was in the castle. She would have made a good choice, but she-- Lily didn’t know how to explain it except to say that Sam liked living in shadows. In fact, she flourished in them and probably would have turned down an appointment as a prefect.

Tracy was too competitive for prefect. If she’d been picked, she would’ve skipped meetings and patrols for quidditch practice and listening to games on the wireless. She would have valued practices more than prefect meetings. More than eating, sleeping, breathing, living, or dying too.

And Christine O'Connell was not what one would call "responsible." Christine never let go of a thought or idea. If something caught her interest it would become her obsession, for a short while at least. She would have blown off patrols and meetings if they bored her, and she wouldn't have understood what was wrong with that.

The boys were even worse. James Potter and Sirius Black would have abused their power to amuse themselves. Peter Pettigrew would never have wanted to take points away from anyone; that boy loathed making enemies.

So Remus and Lily were gifted the chore and neither seemed to fit in at these meetings. Thank goodness the food was excellent.

As if to bribe the students into coming, the house elves pulled out all of the favorite feast dishes to give to the prefects during these long, long meetings. Often Lily found herself creating games with the food so as to drown out the discussions that never advanced. Once she had made a miniature of Hogwarts with a combination of five soups, two slices of cake, and a little bread. Lily smiled at the memory.

"Do you find something particularly amusing, Miss Evans?" Damn!

"No, Professor. I was smiling at the brilliance of your plan for the year," Lily replied immediately.

"Which plan?"

"The one about which you were just speaking."

"And what exactly might that be?" McGonagall asked in her challenging tone.

"I won't do it justice with a repeat," Lily said. McGonagall glared some more. _I wonder if she can revoke my prefect position?_ Lily thought. But once again she considered who her replacement might be and she decided that McGonagall would not want to take that chance.

But, Lily wondered, would losing her title really be that bad? Yes, it would. Though she did not like the actual practical meeting part of the job, Lily loved being a prefect. She loved having power and knowing she used it well. She loved being important and honored, though she did not like to admit that. She just really hated these meetings.

A sudden outburst of noise caught and dragged Lily back into reality. She leaned over to Remus and asked him what was going on. He looked back at her, amused.

"The meeting is over."

"Hallelujah!" A few people nearby laughed at her exclamation. The Transfiguration professor was not one of them.

"Miss Evans, stay behind." McGonagall's sharp tone stopped Lily half way out the door. Lily might not have thought anything of it, but the smirk from Remus -- _Remus!_ \-- as he walked out the door bothered her to no end. Lily mentally sighed, turned around, and found herself face to face with one of the angriest McGonagall faces. The older woman said nothing until after the last of the fifth years had collected their things and meandered out.

"Would you care to explain your behavior tonight, Miss Evans?" Lily shook her head, deciding that lamenting about the mundane meetings would rather insult the woman in charge of them. "I expected better of you, Miss Evans. You, as a sixth year, have an obligation to the younger students. You must set an example. Today, you told them that disrespecting professors and daydreaming in prefect meetings is acceptable."

Something inside Lily screamed to protest, to say that she had not been disrespectful. She had just... not paid unnecessary attention. But Lily remained silent.

"I don't understand your attitude in today's meeting."

"Sorry, Professor," Lily said, going through the motions and even feeling a bit badly for seeming to have upset the professor so much.

"I know you must feel overwhelmed because of the new classes, but none of the other sixth years reacted like you."

"Sorry," Lily repeated, not knowing what else to say. McGonagall's lips went thin again and she nodded, indicating that Lily could leave. The redhead grabbed her things and headed for the door, grateful to have gotten away unscathed.

The walk back to the common room was unremarkable. Lily had grown accustomed to the castle these last years (or maybe the castle had grown accustomed to her, she wasn't sure).

"Painful meeting, no?" The voice was surprisingly loud in the empty corridor and made Lily's heart jump. She turned and saw Remus Lupin walking fast to match her pace. When had she passed him?

"Completely pointless," Lily lamented, not wanting to talk about it or McGonagall's request for her to stay behind, or anything really. All she wanted to do was forget the hours of her life that had just been stolen from her by that stupid, stupid meeting.

"I hate those things," Remus said. Why was he talking to her? He never spoke to anyone unless one of his friends was nearby. And he most certainly never spoke to Lily; she knew because she had been trying to get him to converse with her for the past year on their monotonous night patrols. Why didn't he talk to her then (when it was needed) instead of now (when it was not)?

"I wasn't paying any attention, was there anything important discussed?" Lily asked in her most grumpy voice.

"The patrol dates were handed out."

"Another joy."

"I changed two of them."

"Neat," Lily said, annoyed.

"I just wanted you to know," Remus said. Lily nodded. The portrait hole was in view. "How are things with your boyfriend?"

"What?" Lily exclaimed, shocked that he asked and shocked that he knew she had seen someone over the summer. Christian did not even go to Hogwarts.

"You dated someone over the holidays, right?"

"Yes."

"He goes to Beuxbaton?"

"Right," said Lily uncertainly, "but we broke up."

"Sorry."

"How did you know about him?" Lily asked. Remus shrugged. Great, now he wanted to be quiet. The Fat Lady was in front of them by that point, so Lily said the password ("Schnoogle") and went in.

"I'll see you tomorrow in Defense," Remus said as a way of good-bye.

"I'm not in that class. I failed my O.W.L."

"Oh."

"I hated that class, couldn't do a thing right." Remus nodded and went left as Lily headed back for the door that eventually led to her dormitory.

What an odd day: first her professors convince her that the apocalypse is coming the form of N.E.W.T.s, then Christine implied that she broke up with Christian for someone else, Sam agrees with her, Tracy is suddenly best friends with the stupid Quidditch team, she had to endure those painful hours of the prefect meeting, was reprimanded by a professor, and had a relatively long conversation with Remus Lupin. It was only three days into the term and already things were off course.


	6. Birthday Surprises

 

From first until third year, Lily's friends had worked diligently to make her rise in time for Astronomy class: They poured water on her head, levitated her, sat on her, banished her sheets, and did anything else they could to make her actually wake up. But third year, Lily had begun to actually like and appreciate Astronomy. It was a combination of a lecture about Orion, the professor's soothing voice, the glittering stars dangling like earrings in the sky, and the loud proclamation from James Potter that the subject was beneath him that made Lily want to try her best.

Since falling asleep in class hindered her ability to properly listen to the lectures or gaze upon the stars, Lily realized she would have to change her sleeping patterns.

So began her Wednesday night vigils-- five hours in the evenings before class when Lily refused to sleep, lest she be too tired to properly wake herself up to listen in class. At first, she tried studying in her bed. She fell asleep. Then she tried reading a book in the common room. She fell asleep. She tried practicing flying, but the dark forest looked especially terrifying at night, so she stopped. In the end, Lily discovered the only way to be able to work properly in class was if she spent those night time hours studying or doing various assignments, in the library, in a straight-backed chair that would not let her fall asleep.

Sam, Christine, and Tracy knew of her plan and left her to it. They were not as willing to sacrifice sleep for stars. The O.W.L. exams had gratified Lily's efforts with an O, and as Professor Sinistra only accepted students marked Outstanding, Lily found herself in Astronomy with four other students, all from Ravenclaw and Slytherin. None of them, however, shared in her library visits before class.

But someone else did.

The first Wednesday of the term found Lily arranging her books and notes on a table to the right side of the library, hidden between two biography shelves. Beside her sat a most unlikely study partner: James Potter. He said nothing as he pulled out the chair. He said nothing as he sat down. Said nothing as he crossed his arms over his chest and waited. In return, Lily said nothing, staring intently at the page in front of her as she tried to guess why in the world James Potter was sitting next to her.

She glanced over at him, only to find him looking right back at her. She gasped and turned back to her book. Then glanced over once more and saw him still looking.

Realizing that she would be unable to work with him just sitting there staring, she turned to him and asked, "What?"

"What what?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

" _What_ are you doing here?" He was acting too innocent, too good. He was obviously up to something.

"Sitting next to you," he replied, tapping his fingers on the wooden table. Lily wanted to hex those fingers off his body. Oh, and she wanted to kiss him. Good grief! She _needed_ to get over this obsession.

"Why?" Lily asked.

"Why what?" His innocent act irritated her. A lot.

"Why are you sitting next to me?"

"To make your table that much better," he replied, smirking. Lily growled in irritation and turned back to her books, determined to ignore him. Determined that no matter how many times her eyes wandered over to him, she would not be pulled into talking with him. And while it was easy to not talk to him, as he offered no further words, it was impossible to ignore him.

Questions ran through Lily's head, distracting her from studying: Why was he there? Why was he talking to her? Why was he so close to her? Ack. Ack. Didn't he know she had to forget about him? Didn't he know that by sitting next to her he was only prolonging her horrible, horrible crush?

His presence set her on edge, tensed and distracted her, but she would never give him the satisfaction of knowing that. No. No. Lily would look steadfastly at her book and ignore him. Ignore him. Ignore him.

"Will you please leave?" Lily finally burst out.

"You don't want me to leave," James said. Lily almost hit him-- hit him for being arrogant and for being right. As distracting as he was proving to be, she wanted to be around him, see him, talk to him, look at him, snog him. Ack! Why couldn't she just forget this stupid infatuation she had with him?

"Didn't I make myself clear enough after the Defense O.W.L.?" asked Lily. She saw his face flush, but he deserved it. Why was he harassing her like this? A horrible answer flashed through her mind: he knew about her obsession with him. No. No. He couldn't. No one knew. But then why was he doing this?

"I'm not about to ask you out again," James said. "I thought you'd like company."

"I don't," Lily snapped, looking down at the book in front of her. If she expected to hear his chair scrape backward and for him to leave the table, she was in for a long wait. As she sat there, hour after hour, waiting for her midnight class, James Potter sat beside her, not saying a word. It was immensely uncomfortable.

And still she caught herself stealing glances towards him. She needed to stop that!

James Potter, it must be said, was not a heartthrob. Where Christian could have been a model, James never could. Christian's features were perfect: his eyes the bluest blue, his teeth straight and white, cheekbones high, and hair a soft golden colour. James, on the other hand, was too thin, too gangly, and his hair was too wild. Lily was attracted to him-- if she was honest with herself, very attracted to him-- not just because she thought he was incredibly cute with his boyish charm, but also because of his edge of intelligence and carefree attitude. But that led to an awkward paradox.

While Lily loved that he understood his classes and wanted to talk with him about the various subjects, she hated that he told everyone how well he understood the lessons. While she loved that he didn't care about certain rules, she hated the fact that he blatantly showed disrespect to authority in general. She loved that he smiled mischievously, but hated the reasons for that smile: torturing Severus Snape, throwing wads of paper at the backs of professors, or he charming "hit me" signs on Slytherins.

Yes, yes, those were the images of James Potter that Lily had to remember. She had to remind herself that James Potter was mean and malevolent and Lily should have gotten over him ages ago.

But that wasn't easy when that evil boy sat quietly beside her for five hours, looking adorable because he never opened his mouth.

 

**\------**

The next Wednesday, James Potter came back to the library during Lily's study time. He pulled out the chair to Lily's left and sat in there in silence for five hours. Lily asked no questions, he offered no conversation starters. It made Lily fidget.

If another person sat beside her, she needed noise, conversation, and activity. That was why she never studied or worked in groups, she felt too much need to converse instead of read. By sitting next to her as she struggled to read through books, James was torturing her. She couldn't think of anything but his presence. But she wouldn't let him know that. No, she sat and worked in silence the next Wednesday. And when he came back the next Wednesday and the one after that, she continued to say nothing and he also remained silent.

It drove her insane.

 

**\------**

Lily and Remus shared their first patrol on the fifteenth of September. It was also a long, silent affair.

Through the duration of it, Remus looked varyingly like he was getting over a bad cold (which might have been the case as Lily hadn’t seen him in classes for two days) and like he wanted to ask her a question. Lily wished he would just ask her the question so that they could begin talking, and she could eventually ask him why the hell James was intruding upon her Wednesdays.

She could have asked him if James had mentioned why he sat with her without saying a word, how he knew about her studying habits, and whether or not Remus could convince him to leave her alone. But, in the end, they returned to their common room with not a single word spoken between them. The highlight of the boring night had been finding two third years in an awkward position behind a suit of armor.

Lily was beginning to dread her time spent with either boy-- Remus because he never spoke during patrols, making the already-boring task painfully dull; and James because he said nothing and so she had no choice but to feel uncomfortable and glance at him a thousand times in one night, reminding herself how cute he was and hating herself for thinking that.

 

**\------**

With the tedium of prefect meetings, ever-harder classes, silent patrols, games of night tag, and uncomfortable Wednesday nights, the first month of school passed by. From the hot, smoldering days of September came October and thoughts of Halloween. At the urging (and vending) of James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter, flashes of orange and black clothing cropped up all over the castle. Girls wore orange ribbons in their hair and the boys threw orange streamers across the hallways. Filch, of course, was in an uproar and everyone was happy with his reaction.

Lily's and Remus's next patrol was scheduled for the twelfth of October, but Remus switched with the Ravenclaw fifth years and it fell on the twentieth of October, a Thursday.

Having discussed it with Sam, Tracy, and Christine before, Lily set out into this patrol determined to speak at least a little with the reclusive boy. She couldn’t  handle another year like this. They had been in the same classes for over five years. They lived in the same house, celebrated the same holidays. They were sure to have something to talk about.

"How are you feeling about Halloween?" she asked boldly. She knew practically nothing about this boy with light brown hair and worry lines etched in his forehead.

"What?" he asked, eyes half-open as they passed through yet another empty corridor.

"Are you excited about Halloween?"

"Oh. Yes.”

Never one to except defeat, Lily pressed on: “Are you doing anything with your friends?"

"We aren't planning any pranks." Bad question to ask, obviously. She recalibrated.

"No. That's not what I was wondering. My friends and I are leaving for a Muggle village nearby. Tracy's aunt lives there. She married a Muggle. We're going trick-or-treating."

"Oh."

"We're dressing up and everything. Have you ever done that?"

"Once," he replied. Feeling encouraged by an answer, Lily continued.

"What did you dress up as?"

"A turtle, I think." How awkward.

"Was it fun?"

"I don't remember. I was young."

"Well, I'm dressing up as a princess. Sam says she already knows what she wants to be, but won't tell me. Tracy's going as a football player. Christine wanted to go as a Muggle and we had to explain why that wouldn't work." A bit of laughter from Remus caught Lily off guard. She looked over at him and smiled. "What would you go as?"

"I don't know." They turned a corner, pictures protesting the bright light emitted by their badges.

"Guess."

"A goblin, maybe."

"After all their revolts, they must be interesting, right?" Lily said. "Uric the Oddball, at the very least, with all his diamond swords."

"Yeah," Remus said, a sort smile on his lips that looked as if it could have been considered playful on someone less serious. “Their executions were brutal to avoid the acidic blood."

"I know!" Lily exclaimed, throwing up her hands. "And his wife-- or goblette or whatever-- was a complete nutter. As if trying to burn Uric weren't bad enough, she had to bury him alive."

"I forgot that,” laughed Remus. Lily looked over at him, laughing too.

"I never thought about it, but I suppose you're one of the people who received an O in that subject," Lily agreed, lighting her wand to peak down a side corridor. "Too bad Hogwarts insists that every student, regardless of O.W.L.s, take it."

"You wouldn't want to take it?"

"No. My favorite parts are all the side stories, not the timelines and poltical implication stuff. I still think I shold have snaked an A because of a drawing I did at the bottom of a sheet," Lily replied. "I might prefer some others not be there, though."

"Everyone should know history."

"Sure, but are they all really there to learn?"

"Who?" he asked. Lily carefully forgot to answer. This was the longest conversation she had ever had with her prefect partner (actually it was probably only the second conversation she'd had with him, the first being after that first meeting) and she didn’t want to ruin it by insulting his friends.

"I don't know why they make us patrol the school at night, it isn't like it does any good," complained Lily a few minutes later as they started us the stairs towards the Divination Tower. "It isn't like students can't notice the bright badges they make us wear."

"The badges give off light to aid us in our walking," Remus recited.

"And to warn off any students we might actually have a chance of catching."

A glance at Remus told Lily everything she needed to know. A slow smile was resting on his lips and his eyes focused on nothing. He'd obviously spent a great deal of his time running from prefects' light. Well, she had too, but she was not as obvious about it.

Remus was an oddity in that way. Sometimes Lily could read the emotions on his face like a billboard, and other times, like tonight, something Lily could not identify glistened in his eyes. It was something she saw quite a bit in Remus Lupin, something she hated because she could not put a name to it.

In a few years, Lily will be able to name that thing in his eye. She will fall asleep with it painting disturbing images in her mind. It will wake her up in the middle of the night and make her move closer to the solid presence beside her. It will force her to check on her baby, get up for work, and cry only when alone. It will make her fight against evil with her very soul. It is knowledge: knowledge that the world is not perfect, that death comes to everyone, that good friends are not immune to temptation, and that the fall of enemies is neither easy to accept nor bring about. It is a mix of the knowledge that sometimes there are things beyond your control and the strength to accept that fact.

 

**\------**

Lily returned from her patrol tired. After their initial bout of conversation, she and Remus fell silent once more and the energy drained out of Lily as the night dragged on. Trudging up to her dorm, Lily undid her orange hair ties and the buttons on her heavy cloak, holding it dangling over her right arm so as to escape the heat it brought on her. The door to her room creaked when she shoved her shoulder against it to open it, and then bright lights and loud noises assaulted her.

"Happy birthday to Lily. Happy birthday to Lily," sang the three girls in the magically brightened room. Each held in her hands a cake of varying colors. As the song continued, Lily started laughing and went to hug each of her friends, thanking them.

"It's midnight. That means you're seventeen. It's a really big important day," Christine said, handing Lily a most disgusting-looking cake. It looked like someone swiped their finger across the frosting. A lot.

"Did you lick this?”

"The frosting looked really tasty," whined Christine. Then Tracy and Sam both gave her their cakes and smiled.

"We had the house elves make them, but we watched," Tracy explained.

"No you didn't," accused Lily. "There is no way any of you would voluntarily watch a cake being made."

"True," said Christine, nodding. When the two other girls looked at her in exasperation she exclaimed, "What? We wouldn't!" Lily laughed and put her cakes on the ground.

"Listen, I'm really grateful and everything, but I'm also"-- a yawn interrupted her words-- "knackered and need my sleep for tomorrow."

"Why, what's happening tomorrow?" asked Tracy in her most innocent voice.

"My surprise party."

"True," agreed Christine from her place on the floor beside the cakes. She managed to get herself a fork and was munching happily away on the two edible-looking cakes.

"Christine!"

"What? She knew!"

Lily smirked as she changed into her night things. She was safely tucked away in her bed, about to slip off into a wonderfully relaxing dream state when her friends’ argument grabbed her attention again.

"I didn't tell her about the surprise, did I?" Christine asked, sounding huffy. Lily sat up.

"What surprise?" Lily asked, eyes alight.

"You suck at secrets," Sam said to Christine.

"Who care? Focus on Lily. It's her birthday. What's the surprise?" Lily said in a rush.

"Oops?" Christine said, popping another piece of cake into her mouth. Tracy pulled out her wand and vanished the remainder of the three cakes. Christine looked shocked and then very sad as she continued to stare at the place where the cakes once were. "I wasn't done."

"Surprise!" said Tracy mockingly.

"But I wasn't done!" pouted the leggy blond still hunched over on the floor, looking very sad indeed.

"What's my surprise?" asked Lily, trying and failing to sound casual. Seeing that no one was about to respond to her inquiries, she decided to embrace persistence. "What's my surprise? What's my surprise? What's my surprise? What's my surprise? What's my surprise? What's my surprise?"

"That's already annoying," quipped Sam, sitting down in the middle of her four-poster opposite Lily, stretching.

And so the night crept by, Lily pestering them for answers, Sam ignoring her, Tracy glaring at Christine, and Christine still complaining about her vanished cakes.

 

**\------**

The surprise, as it turned out, was one of the worst in Lily's short life. Her birthday landed on a Friday and, as none of the girls slept much, they were dead tired. And irritable.

"What's my surprise?" barked Lily, way past merely asking and now into full frontal badgering.

"Do you think that is less annoying now than it was before the sun rose?" asked Tracy in a very snippy voice. They were sitting at breakfast together-- along with the rest of their house. Lily and Tracy sat opposite each other with Christine and Sam next to them respectively.

"Lily, listen, I'll tell you what my surprise is," said Sam as she took a few pieces of bacon.

"Your surprise?" Lily asked.

"We each got you one. Mine is this," Sam explained, handing Lily a box. Carefully unwrapping it, Lily lifted the lid and--

"Sam!" she squealed, throwing off the packaging and holding up an orange blob. "This is perfect."

"What is the world is that?" Tracy asked, poking the blob with her spoon across the table.

"It's a Muggle Halloween costume. The lady in the store said it was perfect for a seventeen year old girl."

Lily, while they were talking, had put on the costume and was now a perfectly content pumpkin, beaming at her friends across the Gryffindor table. The pumpkin (which was the orange blob that was actually a round almost-dress that fell to her knees) had a smiley face on it and sagged a little around the middle, but the white gloves on her hands, black booties on her feet, and elastically attached orange top hot managed to make Lily— who was naturally stunning— looking positively stupid. She also looked adorable.

"Halloween fever just exploded into an epidemic," Sirius Black announced on the other side of the table.

"It'll kill the children, it will," James Potter agreed.

Lily heard him, felt a sharp pang of embarrassment but pushed it away, angry with herself for giving him so much power of her. No other person in her year or house could manage to hurt her the way James could. Why his opinion should mattered to her, she didn’t know. Sam, Christine, and Tracy were too tired to care that their friend looked ridiculous. Even if they were coherent, they wouldn’t have said anything. Actually, they probably would have created costumes of their own and joined in the fun.

"So what's your surprise?" Lily asked Christine. Just as she was about to say something, Tracy covered her mouth with her hand. Lily spun on the smaller girl. "Why'd you do that?"

"Because mine is better," Tracy said casually. "So you can have mine now, if you want."

"Yes!" Lily said, clapping her glove-covered hands together in childish delight. So Tracy brought an envelope out from under the table. Lily ducked under to see if there was anything in Christine's lap. There wasn't.

"Here you are," Tracy said, tossing to her across the table. Lily opened this one a bit slower, took out the letter and carefully read it over. Her friend, being strange and prone to adventure, had sent Lily a treasure map. It was filled with clues and strange symbols that were meant to signify different points throughout the castle. It would be very fun to figure out.

"This is so cool! Thank you," Lily said, smiling at her friend. Tracy always had been the creative one. Christine came up with the big ideas and Tracy made them work— Christine had been the one to think of playing a game at night and two weeks later Tracy handed all four of them the rules to magical laser tag.

"Don't worry. I'm sure you'll love the buried treasure." Her tone scared Lily, who knew exactly what sort of thing Tracy's devious mind could create.

"So, Christine, can I have your surprise yet?" Lily asked. Christine blinked at her.

"What?"

"My surprise?"

"Oh! Sure. He's right over there.” She pointed behind Lily, and without knowing why, Lily's heart dropped a little. She almost knew before looking what she would see. Christine, for all of her wonderful bluntness, was rather thick about certain other things. Still, she turned because she knew she had to and there she saw—

"Christian," Lily whispered.

"Hottie!" chirped Christine.

"Oh no," groaned Tracy at the same time. If Lily hadn't been overrun with shock, she would have noticed the way Tracy's eyes shot over to James.

"Is that who I think it is, Christine?" Sam asked, staring at him.

"Yep."

"Why would you ever invite him here?" Tracy continued as Lily wordlessly rose and walked towards the smiling boy.

"Don't worry. I asked Professor Dumbledore's permission," Christine said.

"I don't think that's what she meant," Sam put in. Together the three of them sat— one happy and the other two feeling dread for different reasons— as they watched the reunion of Lily and Christian.

 

**\------**

"Hi," Lily said, hugging Christian because she didn’t know what else to do. In his embrace, Lily was reminded of kissing him on her front porch, walking with him through the park, teaching him to roller-skate. But in the stiffness of his arms, the way he quickly stepped out of her embrace, she felt the distance she had put between them. He still felt hurt by her rejection and that crushed Lily, making her dread the coming day.

"Where's my hug?" asked a voice to Lily's left, making her glance over and see one of the most welcome sights in her life:

"Ian!" she exclaimed, almost sighing in relief to have someone to share this day with besides her ex-boyfriend. She gladly threw her arms around him.

"Hullo," Ian said as she let him go.

"What're you doing here?" Lily asked them both.

"Christine O'Connell asked me to come celebrate your birthday." Christian's formal tone unnerved Lily. "And Ian asked if he might come too."

"How long are you staying?"

"Our Portkey leaves at four."

"So you'll be coming to my classes with me? That'll be fun. You can tell me what's different, what's the same," Lily said, trying to sound enthusiastic as she ran her timetable over in her head.

"What are you wearing?" asked Christian, seeming to notice for the first time. Lily looked down.

"A pumpkin costume," she replied.

"Why?"

"Because it's almost Halloween and Sam gave it to me for my birthday."

"Oh."

"A little too enthused about candy, aren't you?" Ian asked. Lily smiled and nodded at him as Christian looked confused, then hurt. Lily's heart almost broke at the sight.

"We skipped breakfast to come here. Do you think we could eat with you?" Ian asked, sensing the tension. Lily glanced at him, then back at Christian, and nodded. As she led the two boys back over to her table, Lily was glad to see Ian smile at all the strangers looking at him, and dismayed to see Christian looking only at her. She was glad to have Sam in nearly all of her Friday classes. She could share in the awkwardness of the day.

And boy was that day awkward.

 

**\------**

Christian and Ian followed Lily around, the latter asking eager questions about the stairs and suits of armor and classes and even Moaning Myrtle, while the former said nothing. Every able-bodied girl in the school tried to pull Lily away from them to ask a hurried question about his availability. Lily ignored all of them.

Introducing Christian and Ian to the Charms class had been interesting. While Professor Flitwick eagerly asked both of them to talk about Charms after class, the students' eyes locked on Lily and asked the unspoken question, "How do you know Christian? Who is he to you?" She ignored those eyes and managed to do little less than panic as she tried to learn. It was her birthday for Heaven's sake, and it was terribly stressful. Christine could be such an idiot.

 

**\------**

"You’re learning large animal transfiguration?" Christian asked during Transfiguration. Lily stiffened at his tone. She loved this school and this castle, she didn't want to have anyone complain about it.

"We’re just ending those lessons now, and soon we'll be working on--"

A small explosion in the back of the room interrupted her explanation. Lily turned to see Ian covered in black soot, laughing. He was squashed between James Potter and Sam, with Tracy on the other side of James. All of them were laughing. It was such a strange mix of people that it took a moment for Lily to realize the feeling rattling around in her stomach was jealousy. She wanted to be a part of that group, strange a mixture as it was, instead of stuck here with Christian as he analyzed the lessons.

Why was it so easy for Ian to become friends with Sam? Sure, they met back in August, but they had hardly spoken. And where had Sirius disappeared to after breakfast that he hadn't been in lessons all day? And why were Sam, Tracy, and Ian sitting so comfortably with James? Why? She hadn't even sat in the same part of the room as him in years. Why was she so absolutely incapable of-- of what? Being near James? Didn't he sit next to her every Wednesday, waiting for her to ask him questions?

"You were going to tell me what your next lesson would be," Christian prompted, pulling Lily from her pitying thoughts. She turned to him, admired his good looks, and tried to force herself to be happy to see him again, instead of wallowing in the awkwardness of the entire situation.

"Right. Sorry." And so she turned back to the boy whose heart she had broken, the boy she thought she had left behind, the boy who had never really managed to keep her from thinking about the boy she really wanted to be with.

 

**\------**

Lunch was another uncomfortable affair, squashing Lily between Christian and Christine. How she would have loved for Ian to be sitting next to her instead of on the other side of the table, chatting with some first years about the moving staircases. He impressed her housemates with his use of the French language, and they impressed him by throwing an apple at the head of a friend of theirs. Meanwhile, Christian sat in silence next to Lily.

When the day finally came to an end, Lily led Christian and Ian to Professor Dumbledore's office to take their Portkey back to Beauxbaton. There, while Lily prepared to say goodbye, Christian asked if he might speak with her alone. Lily nodded and let him lead her into a corner, then listened to him speak.

"My family was invited to a Ministry Ball on New Year's Eve and I was hoping you would escort me," Christian said.

"A ball?" Lily asked, for lack of anything better to say. Did he really want to spend more time with her? Was he really that oblivious to the uncomfortable tension that settled on them all day? Did he want to prolong the pain? Was this his way of getting back at her for breaking up with him?

"Yes. It's to celebrate the promise of the New Year under the Minister-elect. I understand that we're no longer anything more than friends but--"

"I'd love to accompany you," Lily said, trying to head-off an even more horrible conversation about the new boundaries of their relationship. Even at that moment, Lily knew she should not have agreed. She did not want to go with him. She would probably not enjoy the experience, but he smiled beautifully in response, nodded, and moved back to the centre of the room where Dumbledore and Ian waited for them.

Christian went over to the headmaster, shook his hand and began to say his thanks. In the meantime, Ian hugged Lily.

"I had a great time. It doesn't look like you did, though," Ian said, stepping back and facing her.

"Don't worry," Lily said miserably, glancing over to make sure that Christian wasn't listening.

"Did he ask you to the Ball?"

"You knew he would? You knew and you didn't tell me?" Ian shrugged. "Couldn't you have at least warned me a little."

"Hey, he's my friend and I thought taking you would be a great idea. Why wouldn't it be?"

"For a billion reasons that I really shouldn't have to explain. You could have stopped this. You could have warned me, or hit him over the head with a large object. Anything!"

"You might have fun."

"Sure," muttered Lily, accepting defeat. Ian patted her on the head.

"I expect to have many owls from Hogwarts in the coming months. Remind James and Samantha to write me as well," Ian said.

"Wait. Why?"

"Because they said they would," Ian replied. "And the next time I see you, I expect you to be dressed up as something a little more inventive than a pumpkin. Happy birthday!"

"Oh. Yes. Happy birthday, Lily. It was a pleasure," Christian said, joining Lily and Ian moments before their Portkey activated and sent them far, far away.

After the boys left, Lily thanked the headmaster for letting them come and walked back to her dorm in a daze, trying to sort through all the thoughts disco dancing in her head. Why had she agreed to go to the ball? Why had she said yes?

Shoving the portrait open wide, Lily marched in to find Christine laying in front of the fire, her toes moving pleasurably close to the flames.

"Why would you do that to me?" exclaimed Lily from halfway across the room. If she cared to notice, the room stopped and stared at her (and not just because she was still in that silly costume).

"What?" asked Christine, rolling her head to the side to see Lily.

"Why would you have invited him here?" Lily asked as she walked across the room, only to stand above her friend.

"Hottie?"

"Christian!" Lily replied, burying her head in her hands.

"I thought it would be a nice present."

"But you knew we broke up!"

"So? That doesn't make him any less of a present." Lily threw her hands up into the air and screamed out her frustration. The people in the room stopped and stared again. This time Lily noticed.

"I'm seventeen! Yay!" she yelled with fake-happiness, trying to cover up her strange yell. When she saw a few first years looking at her, she said, "And I am equally happy that you are eleven."

"I'm twelve," one of the first years called back.

"Of course you are! Congratulations!" Lily yelled and started clapping.

"You're insane," came the voice of Sam, making Lily start. She turned to find the black-haired girl sitting on one of the couches nearby. "How did the good-byes go?"

"Horribly. I am now officially going on a sort of date with Christian," Lily mumbled, settling down into a vacant chair beside her two best friends.

"Ew. Why?" asked Sam.

"Because he's gorgeous," supplied Christine, relaxing back into a position where she rested her head on her arms.

"Why did you invite him?" Lily asked Christine, then turned to Sam and asked, "Why did you let her invite him?"

"I didn't know what she was doing. Neither did Tracy."

"Well, isn't that just perfect?" lamented Lily.

"When's the date?" asked Christine.

"New Year's Eve."

"What?" the two girls exclaimed, both with abject horror covering their faces. Christine was the first to regain her voice.

"Tracy's party is that night."

"Ah!" moaned Lily. "I forgot. I can't believe I forgot. She's been planning that for months."

"What can't you believe you forgot?" asked Tracy, walking up behind the three girls and looking suspicious. For a five foot two inch girl with an innocent face and easygoing personality, she sure did inspire fear when she wanted. It was the beater in her.

"I made a date with Christian on New Year's Eve," Lily explained. To her surprise, Tracy's face didn't change one bit.

"I thought you weren't dating," Tracy said.

"We aren't," Lily said. Then she proceeded to explain the situation as Tracy walked over to the couch Sam was on and sat down.

"Wait. New Year's Eve Ball? You're invited to the Ministry Ball," proclaimed Christine with large eyes and her most serious voice. Lily shrugged and nodded. "You have to go."

"But Tracy's been planning this party and I don't really want to go with Christian and lead him on--"

"You don't understand. Only the most powerful, important, famous, fabulous, old people go to that Ball. There are journalists who wait outside the exit for days on the off-chance of speaking to one of the guests," Christine said quickly. The tall blonde girl's brown eyes unfocused as she stared into the fire. She seemed to be daydreaming and Lily resisted the urge to wave a hand in front of her friend's eyes.

"She's overreacting, right?" Lily asked her two other friends. Tracy shook her head.

"I don't know as much about it as Christine because she follows these sort of things as if they could grant her top box tickets to the World Cup, but even I know that this Ball is an event. It's held at the Crystal Ball, right?" Tracy asked. Lily shrugged and Sam nodded. "You can't even get in there without a Portkey. My parents had to make reservations a year in advance for their anniversary."

"You're exaggerating," Lily accused.

"Slightly," acknowledged Tracy, "but it is an exclusive restaurant and the party's even more prestigious. I'll excuse you from my party for this. Easy."

"I don't want to be excused from your party."

"Then why did you accept the date?"

"Because I wasn't thinking."

"That's obvious," quipped Sam.

"Lily's going to the Ministry Ball and I'm not," muttered Christine as she rose from her spot and wandered off towards their dorm.

"I don't know that I want to go to a such an important Ball," said Lily.

"You'll be fine. Come to Tracy's earlier that day and we'll dress you up," offered Sam.

But still doubts lingered in Lily's mind. Sam--who came from an old, powerful wizarding family--might think the Ball was not that big of a deal, but Lily--who potently felt her Muggle roots every moment she spent in the wizarding world--did not want to surround herself with people who thought they were her betters. Tracy's large, raucous party sounded much more appealing. She had invited nearly every student in their year (except the Slytherins), Matt had invited a lot of seventh years, and nearly all of the fifth years had also received invitations.

"So Christian coming wasn't a complete mistake after all, was it?" Tracy asked Lily.

"Why not?"

"Because you were invited to the Ball," she replied.

"It's not really that big a thing, right?"

"It's important," Sam said, "but I think Christine's real excitement is in the fact that you and Christian as so young. Normally only the head of a family's invited, which ought to be his parents. I suppose they had something else to do that night, though."

"Argh! I don't want this," Lily muttered.

"On a positive note, Ian's even more fun than I remember," Sam added.

"He mentioned something about you," Lily said, vaguely remembering even though it was not too long before. "And he mentioned James."

"The two of them hit it off like old friends," Sam told her. "It was a bit disturbing."

"Not Remus and Peter and Sirius?"

"Remus is visiting his aunt right now, Sirius was missing all day, and Peter was sitting next to his girlfriend in Transfiguration. On the other hand, James and I had all the free time in the world to chat with him," Sam explained. "While you were trying to keep Bimbo-Boy from complaining too loudly about this beautiful castle, Ian was learning how to make his notes turn into cranes and deliver themselves. Apparently, rule breaking hardly happens at Beauxbatons."

"And it's no wonder with that crazy woman as their headmistress," Tracy said. "She wanted to ban Quidditch."

"Ian thought James was brilliant. He kept asking him questions about this or that and James just lapped it up," Sam continued. Lily felt a stab of that same irrational jealousy surge through her. She wanted to be able to talk to James so easily. She wanted to talk with him at all without blowing up in his face like a fool. She scolded herself. She had the chance to talk to him every Wednesday. What she really wanted was the ability to talk him with.

"Great. He flamed his ego," Lily muttered, taking off her white gloves, booties and hat from the costume before pulling the actual pumpkin costume off as well.

"He isn't that bad," Tracy said. "James has really calmed down."

"I'll believe that when I see Snape walk into the Great Hall for breakfast without some sort of hex on his person."

"But Snape's so gross," Tracy said.

"He's a human, and thus not supposed to be treated like dirt," pressed Lily.

"He's a Slytherin. They’re barely human and mostly evil," Tracy said. It bothered Lily, the way Tracy regarded Slytherins: she had not even consider inviting them to her party; when they tripped in the hallway, Tracy stepped over them. Tracy treated Slytherins with more prejudice than Lily ever felt herself subjected to at their hands.

"You have to admit, some of the pranks he pulled on Snape have been funny," Tracy said.

"But most of them were cruel," Lily replied.

"No. Most of his ideas are stupid, like the way James used to fly down to breakfast," Sam said. Lily let out a burst of laughter, remembering one of James's worst ideas.

"And how he used to ostentatiously bring food into the common room, yelling, 'Sirius, I think we got too much food!' and acted shocked when people asked him where he got it from?" Lily said.

"How about that night you ran into his friends and him when we were playing the Game?" Sam said, laughing along with Lily.

"They were so confused!" Tracy laughed.

"And then the way he threw open the door to our dorm?" The three girls kept giggling, remembering all of the occasions when James Potter tried and obviously failed to look cool.

"Speaking of which: I can't believe you lost the September Game by thirty points, Lily," Sam said, pointing at her redheaded friend.

"I'm only letting you think you beat me--"

"In every Game since we were thirteen," supplied Tracy.

"So that you feel better about yourselves," Lily finished, ignoring the interruption. The three girls laughed at that, knowing Lily's horrendous scores stemmed from her blatant lack of ability in Defence. While the game had taught them all how to hit a target from over two hundred feet away, Lily could not manage to create a curse with enough energy to actually travel that far. She reeked at curse work. Always had.

"You know, James has gotten better. He's curbed his attitude quite a bit," Tracy said, bridging the gap in conversation with her almost-casual tone.

"No he hasn't," Lily scoffed.

"He has. He's been nothing but polite with me. He works with McGonagall-"

"When no one was looking because he can't ruin his reputation."

"And he's good friends with the house-elves."

"I'm not surprised. They probably worship the ground he works on. That's what James looks for in a friend," Lily said. "But I think I made some progress with Remus. We spoke for what had to be five minutes. Or at least two."

"That's more than zero," Sam agreed amicably.

"But seriously, James has--"

"Tracy?" interrupted Sam, knowing that the last person Lily wanted to talk about on her seventeenth birthday was her long-time crush and even longer heartache. "Go hit a bludger."


	7. Costumes

 

"I still don't understand why I couldn't just go as a Muggle," complained Christine when the girls began their night of trick-or-treating.

"Because on Halloween you dress up as something you don't actually believe exists," replied Sam. The tan girl looked hilariously perfect in her witch's costume. She had the floppy hat, wart on the nose, fishnet black stockings, and school robes billowing around her.

When Christine first mentioned wanting to take part in Halloween, the four girls decided to forego the feast and celebration at Hogwarts in favor of unlimited tricks and treats. They had asked the Headmaster for permission to visit Tracy's aunt over Halloween weekend, knowing that the woman lived in a Muggle village. But even at this late stage, Christine did not seem to grasp the idea of the holiday.

"What if I didn't believe in Muggles?" Christine asked with an air of triumph.

"Then I would say you're thick," chirped Tracy, dressed in the strangest costume any of them had ever seen. There was a popular Muggle doll at the moment that none of the girls knew about. The woman at the store assured them it was the perfect costume and, to tell the truth, Tracy did look adorable with her hair in her normal short pigtails, large poke-a-dot red and white coveralls over a white shirt, red and white knee-high socks, white gloves, and black shiny shoes. She even had fake freckles on her nose and cheeks.

"But I believe in witches and Sam is a witch. And I believe in giraffes," Christine pointed out as they headed up the path to the first home.

"Right. You also dress up as something you don't believe a person could actually be. Besides, you look good in yellow," Lily replied, smiling.

In truth, because of her height and their own procrastination, Christine had to choose between a giraffe and a pencil. Lily thought Christine made the best choice. Lily, of course, dressed up as a pumpkin. While she planned to be a princess, she had grown attached to the silly orange costume on her birthday.

**\------**

Tracy's aunt lived in a nice area. Her neighbors handed out whole bars of chocolate instead of miniature sizes. Of course, Christine forgot her costume qualms as she immediately tried each and every type of sweet she received.

After four hours and too many houses to count, even Christine realized the folly of her actions.

"I hurt. I hurt so badly," she moaned, clutching her stomach. Lily managed to suppress her desire to say I told you so. Sam did not hold back.

"Maybe if you'd listened to us you wouldn't be in this pain," Sam said, her friend's discomfort amusing her greatly.

"Want to race to the next house?" asked Tracy, bouncing up and down on her toes.

"No! I never want to move again," Christine moaned.

"Guess that means you don't want the rest of your treats," said Lily, moving to take her bag of sweets out of her hand.

"No, no," Christine protested, making a valiant effort to stop rolling on the floor as she clutched her bag with both hands. "I'll move. I'll move."

"This is the last house anyway," Lily said, straightening. "And Tracy, you're on."

The two smallest girls in the group took off like perfectly aimed hexes: red and brown hair streaming behind them. Sam and Christine threw their bags over their shoulders and followed at a much slower pace.

After gathering the last of their sweets, the four friends stumbled into Tracy's aunt's guest room amidst giggles and sugar-highs. They stayed up half the night chatting as they munched on their sweets. The current subject of conversation was the Muggle bloke who had asked Christine that night if he could ring her. Tracy had punched him. It took all of Lily's patience to explain that the boy was just chatting her up.

"I wish a bloke would ask me for my number," Lily said, opening another chocolate bar.

"You have Hottie," replied Christine, laying herself down on the middle of the ground and curling up into a ball as she clutched her stomach in pain. She'd eaten more despite her own pain and the advise of her friends.

"I don't even want Christian!" said Lily as Sam reached out and took the bag away from Christine, who was laying on the blue carpet.

"Are you all right, Christine?" Sam asked.

"I hurt." She reached out to grab her candy bag from Sam and drag it toward herself, where she hugged it to her chest.

"Well, Lily, you aren't going to snag a boy at Hogwarts," mumbled Tracy as she rummaged through her own stash of sweets.

"Why not?" asked Lily, feeling a sharp pang of hurt as her friend all but told her she was unattractive.

"What?"

"You just said I couldn't find a boy at Hogwarts. Why not?" Lily tried not to sound too terribly upset.

"I said that?" Tracy asked. Lily saw Christine reach out for her bag. Sam moved it out of her reach

"You did," said Lily as Christine glared at Sam. "Why couldn't I?"

"Well," began Tracy, "because you've got a bubble."

"A bubble?"

"A bubble tells blokes not to try anything, no matter if they like you," explained Christine, crawling toward Sam and her bag.

"Why would I have something like that?"

"Dunno." Tracy shrugged as she poked her head back into her bag. "I just heard that you do."

"You're bubbled if a bloke likes you and lets everyone know it," Christine said as she lunged at Sam, who was tackled to the ground.

Hours and many different topics later, the four girls laid in various areas around the room, falling asleep. But for Lily, sleep did not and would not come easily.

**\------**

"And what's this one taste like?" asked Christine in a loud voice that Monday in Potions. Christine, after a night of stomach problems, refused to eat anything without knowing beforehand what it tasted like. Hence, she pestered Lily.

"Peppermint," whispered Lily, trying not to draw too much attention to herself as she was trying to fall asleep sitting up.

It was easier to answer her questions than ignore her. Otherwise, Christine, who had absolutely no respect for a classroom setting, would ask the question over and over again until she received a response. The blonde girl popped the sweet in her mouth and spit it out.

"Ew! That did not taste like peppermint."

Lily cringed. Why couldn't Christine learn the art of whispering and subtly? The professor had turned to face them.

"Would you like to leave, Miss Evans?" The professor -- a man Lily actually thought was rather entertaining -- asked Lily.

"Would I miss anything important?" Lily asked, hoping he would either take it as a joke and laugh or take it seriously and let her leave. How she would have loved to take a nap.

The professor smiled and shook his head at her. "You're rather impertinent today, aren't you?"

"It's Monday," Lily replied, shrugging. She could see people staring at her oddly, but who cared? Lily was effing tired. The professor smiled and shook his head before going back to patrolling the classroom.

"What's this one taste like?" interrupted Christine once more. Lily moaned and threw her head down on her hands in frustration. She had hardly slept that weekend and she was suffering the consequences and on top of that, Christine was poking her in the side, asking, "What does it _taste_ like?"

**\------**

As she walked towards the Great Hall after his morning classes, Lily felt like her head was about to explode. She was not sure what a migraine felt like, but she was sure Christine O'Connell was the cause of them. She pushed through the throngs of students, apologizing as she went. Then she accidentally knocked a book out of someone's hands.

"Oh shoot. I'm so sorry. I didn't see you," Lily said, bending to pick the book up and only managing to knock into the person who bent down at the same moment. She cried out and grabbed her head with her right hand as her left held the book.

"Sorry," he said. She looked up to smile at him and say it was fine, but froze when she realized who it was. Her smile dropped and she took two steps backward, her tired eyes widening. Why did she always have to make such an arse out of herself in front of him?

"I'm not going to hex you," James Potter said, thawing up his hands.

"You would if I were a Slytherin," Lily snapped, her anger more from her lack of sleep than him.

"Probably."

"Here," she said, pushing his book into his arms. "Take your book. It's probably _101 Ways to Curse the Helpless_." Then Lily turned and continued pushing her way towards the Great Hall. Once there, she grouchily took a seat across from Tracy.

"What happened to you?" Tracy asked, dipping a cracker into her soup.

"Nothing," Lily said. But she saw Tracy's eyes flick towards the door and locked with James Potter's. They were silently talking. "Stop that!"

"Stop what?" asked Tracy, wide eyed and innocent. Lily's glared.

"Stop looking at him. Just because he's your Quidditch teammate doesn't mean he's perfect."

"He's also my friend."

"Whatever." Lily saw Tracy's eyes flash over to James's and grew more frustrated. "He's a bigot and bully."

"He picks on Severus Snape occasionally," Tracy corrected. If Lily did not know better, she would think Tracy was trying to make Lily like James. Well, too bad for her. Lily was determined to get over this annoying obsession she had with James. The first thing she needed to do was gather the willpower to go somewhere else to study on Wednesdays, or at least to tell him off so severely that he would never come back. The only problem was that she wanted him to come back. Argh! Dwelling on this was not helping her get over him.

"And he insists on either calling Severus Snape that stupid, cruel nickname," Lily said. "Normal people don't do that. How old were you when you stopped making up mean names for people you don't like?"

"I know that's a bit childish, but I think he has the right sort of idea. The Slytherins are lining up to join ranks with evil," Tracy said. If it had been anyone but Tracy-- Tracy who was one of Lily best friends-- the redhead might have slapped her.

"That's such a horrible stereotype," said Lily.

"It's not a stereotype when it's true," Tracy said, taking a sip of her water.

"Yes it is!" Lily snapped. "And it's not true!"

"Listen, I don't care. We're both tired and cranky. Why don't we skive off our afternoon classes and relax a bit?" Tracy side stepped the argument like she always managed to do. She held out a hand for Lily to shake, which the redhead did, though reluctantly. When Lily pulled her hand back there was a piece of parchment in it. Before Lily could look up at Tracy, the brunette was gone and Lily was left to read her note alone. 

_12:00 - 2:45  
Fifth floor only before 2:15_

And so the Game was on.

**\------**

Lily's watch showed the time to be two thirty-seven and the score on her arm told her she was in second place. If she could make it back to the common room first, she would win. But the last corridor before the Fat Lady proved to be a problem.

Lily was running as fast as she could around a corner and towards the staircase that led to her common room when a voce made her freeze.

"Stop right there! Halt!" came the distinctly pompous voice of a prefect. In all of her running, Lily had missed their lighted badges. How could she have been so stupid?

"Lily?" asked a softer voice as the prefect lit her wand. Lily clutched her left side, breathing deeply as she tried to catch her breath.

"Ruth?" Lily hoped she had the name right.

"What are you doing?" Ruth asked.

"Is your entire year trying to sabotage our chances at the house cup?" demanded Mike, the other half of the seventh year Gryffindor prefects.

"What do you mean my whole year?" Lily asked, hoping they had detained Christine, who was in first place.

"We just passed Remus Lupin and his crowd a few corridors back. None of you even bothered to hide from us," Mike said. His disappointment meant little to Lily as she saw a glint of movement behind him. She threw herself onto the ground, rolled to her right, aimed and shot the spell at the movement. Even in this poorly lit setting, Lily's aim was perfect. It was the power of the curse that failed her. Sam was hardly stunned.

"What's going on?" Ruth asked, covering her head. "Are we under attack?"

"No. No. Nothing. Don't worry," replied Lily, scrambling up and taking both of them by the hand in order to pull them toward the portrait hole. "Let's discuss this in the tower."

She ran as fast as she could, shouting the password early, but when she entered the room she saw Christine and Tracy panting near the entrance and her heart sank.

Even the scolding of her fellow prefects paled in comparison to the realization that she would not win this game (or even come in a close second). The harsh reminder of her weakness with curses came in the form of the materializing score sheet. All of her points could have been doubled (if not more) had she simply put more power into her curse-work, but she knew it was her weakest area and as she was no longer enrolled in Defense, she doubted she would be getting much better any time soon.

Because of her rank as prefect (and because they abhorred taking points from their own house), no points were taken off and the event went unreported. Lying in her bed that evening, Lily related the story back to her friends.

"The Game could have been ruined. What did they think we were doing?" asked Tracy.

"I have no idea. They seemed more upset about the fact that all of the sixth years were out of bed and roaming around the castle after hours," replied Lily.

"I wonder what the blokes were up to," Sam said.

"We could ask them," suggested Christine.

"Then we would have to explain what we were doing," Tracy snapped. "We can't do that."

Of the four of them, Tracy was strictest about the rules of the Game. It might have stemmed from the fact that she created the rules, but she insisted that knowledge of the Game extend no further than the four of them. That was part of the reason they were forbidden to talk about it aloud except in the dormitory at night. It was also one of the reasons for the odd way they were informed of the Game (Tracy passing each a note with a time period on it). At the appointed time, each girl cast the Commencement Charm and the Game was on: the four of them magically connected, the only ones who could be effected by the _estimulumos_ spell, and the scores glowing on their arms.

Having a set time for the beginning and the end of the Game-- as opposed to each girl simply trying to get to the common room first-- had been Christine's idea, but Tracy had been the one to look up a spell that would safely freeze another person for a short amount of time. Lily had been the one who discovered how to connect the spell with the scoring system. Sam suggested acquiring extra points for being the first back to the common room within ten minutes of the end of the game and penalizing people who did not make it back in the allotted time. Tracy, of course, came up with the no-backs rule that forbid a person to attack a person who attacked them less than five minutes beforehand.

And that how, in short, the Game had grown from something of a flimsy idea into a well-defined powerhouse of fun.

**\------**

The next prefect meeting, held in the middle of November, dragged on and on. Each pair of prefects had to report a problem they had and the group brainstormed ways to deal with said problem. Diana Halbur, the over-enthusiastic Head Girl, had come up with the idea.

Only three pairs of fifth years had spoken and an hour had already passed.

Everyone, it seemed, had a great idea about what or how a problem ought to be fixed. Lily's comments throughout (sometimes sarcastic, always jesting) did not speed up the process, but they managed to make her enjoy herself more. In between comments, Lily was sculpting a miniature Hogwarts out of the assortment of foods provided.

Her comments and sculpture were unappreciated by the Head Girl and the female sixth year prefects from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw (the self-proclaimed forerunners in the running for Head Girl). During each discussion the latter pair vied for the most speaking time and the final word. Sometimes, Lily felt like giving each a sword and telling them to duel. It would have been faster and more entertaining than the current situation: twenty-five students stuck in a dinky room listening to them shout at one another.

The current topic came from the Slytherin fifth years. It had been the 'current' topic for something close to twenty minutes with the same circular, ever-angrier arguments bouncing back and forth between the "forerunners."

"If you cover your badge, your authority will diminish and you won't be able to--" said the Ravenclaw through clinched teeth.

"And if you don't cover it, rule breakers will see you ahead of time and then won't receive the punishment they deserve and then--" interrupted the Hufflepuff, louder.

"The badge is the only thing that marks us as superior--" The shorter girl pushed her seat so forward that it pressed her against the table.

"And the light that it gives off marks us as well--" replied the girl across the table, leaning in to reinforce her point.

"If you take off the badge--" yelled the first girl.

"If you take no precautions--" interrupted the second.

"Just cast out a giant blinding spell," Lily said loudly. Everyone looked at her, surprised to here her mildly scornful and slightly self-mocking tone amidst the shouting. "If you blind them, the evil doers won't be able to see a thing, let alone your badge." The other prefects laughed incredulously, grateful to hear the bickering end.

At the sound of laughter both sixth year girls slid back into their chairs and looked embarrassed. The fifth year Slytherins who presented the problem looked uncomfortable.

"You need to wear to the badge so that professors know you're a prefect but if you hear a suspicious noise from somewhere close, you might want to put your hand over your badge to block the light a little," said Head Boy Matt McGrath, Tracy's brother.

"Fine. Be sensible, Matt. I still support the blinding spell," Lily said.

"Which would send you to Azkaban," quipped Kevin Creggie, sitting to Lily's left.

"If you care about that sort of thing," replied Lily, waving her hand as if that were a small detail. The fifth year Slytherins, who brought up the topic, nodded and sank gratefully into their seats.

"Thank you, Lily and Matt. That was an inventive way to fix the problem, but according to rule one hundred and twelve, Hogwarts prefects are never to block the light of their badge. If ever a student is in trouble and searching for one of us, we must ensure they are able to," said Diana, standing up to not so subtly remind everyone that she was Head Girl.

Diana had worked six hard years to deserve the title of Head Girl and she would be damned if a mere sixth year made her look less than capable of maintaining control of her meetings. Well, that was fine with Lily. She knew she wasn't a great prefect, let alone leader of meetings. She wasn't about to become Head Girl.

The Slytherins had been the last batch of fifth years, so the sixth years were now in charge of confessing a problem facing them. The Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff girls fought to be the first to announce their problems. The Hufflepuff, by sheer volume, won the battle.

"I often have first years come to me to ask for help dealing with Peeves. I have tried to talk to him, but he doesn't recognize my authority at all." The girl, whose name was Jenna, sounded distraught, as if the title of prefect ought to give her dominion over all living (and dead) things.

"I've never heard a complaint about Peeves from _my_ first years," Jodie, the Ravenclaw sixth year, replied. Lily rolled her eyes as she took a bun and magically trimmed it into a replica of the South East Tower.

"Maybe your first years don't feel comfortable talking with you about such things," Jenna said meanly. "In Hufflepuff we make sure to ask--"

"My first years are perfectly content to complain to me!"

"And about you," snapped Jenna. Lily caught the eyes of the other sixth year girl in the room, Slytherin Gertrude Wrightman, and rolled her eyes. Gertrude glared back. The girl hated Lily.

"How dare--" began Jodie. Why weren't Jodie and Jenna's partner prefects saying anything to rein in their housemates? Stupid question. It wasn't like Remus would ever have said anything to Lily if she were acting that way.

"You ought to talk to Professor Dumbledore when Peeves acts up," interrupted Diana.

"I already thought to do that," snapped Jenna, obviously not realizing that she was talking to Diana, not Jodie. Lily, who had finished the windows of the tower, stepped in to speed this process up a bit. Another bought of fighting between Jenna and Jodie might prolong this meeting well into the night and Lily did not think she could handle that without screaming very, very loudly.

"Or you could dress up as the Bloody Barron and just try to terrify Peeves," Lily suggested, making the room smile. "Or, you know, you could just tell your first years to ignore Peeves. It's not like he ever really hurts anyone or anything. If they're really desperate, suggest that they tell him where the caretaker or Professor McGonagall are." Lily looked over at the head of her house and smiled. "No offense, but he's always more interested in attacking you than anyone else."

Professor McGonagall's eyes might have lightened. Or darkened. Lily wasn't sure. She turned back to her castle.

"If he has already pestered someone, there's little you can do except report it to an adult, but even they have limited ability to control him. The only person he listens to is Professor Dumbledore, and the only ghost he respects is the Bloody Barron. If he becomes truly unbearable, invoke the help of either of those two," Matt said. Lily looked over and smiled at him. "Next problem."

"Well," began Jodie, jumping up at the chance to announce an obviously much more important problem. Her partner prefect rose awkwardly beside her. "I have an increasing number of my housemates complaining about the food--"

Lily stopped listening. A glance at Matt told her that he had done likewise. The Head Boy picked up his quill and wrote on his parchment, then pushed it towards Lily. She looked down and read, _Nice castle, bored?_

Lily picked up her own quill and wrote back: _Always._

Matt smiled and wrote, _Did you have fun at my aunt's?_ Lily nodded, not bothering to look like she cared about the problems circling the group.

 _How was the feast?_ she asked.

 _Good. Two pumpkins exploded._ He wrote back. Lily had heard the story from a third year after she returned from her day of Muggle fun, but never had the event explained to her.

_I heard about that. What happened?_

_No one knows, but I suspect foul play from a certain group of Gryffindors in sixth year._

_We weren't even here!_ Lily scribbled.

_I meant the male half._

_Oh. You're probably right._

_Speaking of which. Where's Remus?_

_Sick or visiting sick family._ Matt looked thoughtful, nodded and turned back to the discussion amongst prefects.

Lily and Mat were strange friends. She would never consider the tall, strong, blonde boy a good friend, but he was a good acquaintance. He was one of the few people at prefect meetings she could talk to without feeling as though he was trying to assert himself as her better. Most prefects were very proud of their accomplishments, to say the least. The fifth years were puffed up with pride in their title, the sixth years were vying for Head Girl and Boy, and the seventh year prefects were bitter about not being chosen Head Girl and Boy.

Lily could count the people she could manage a decent conversation with during these meetings on one hand: Cleo (last year's Head Girl), Matt, Remus (though they rarely spoke), and Kevin Creggie (the Ravenclaw sixth year who was unfortunate enough to work with Jodie).

As Lily looked around the room, she saw Jenna and Jodie nearly at each other's throats again. Their male counterparts looked bored and irritated. While those girls were ready to kill for the position of Head student, the boys knew their chances of becoming Head Boy was so slim that they didn't try.

Kevin had once explained it to Lily, saying that the headmaster didn't choose the Heads simply because they were prefects. He didn't pick them because of marks. Instead, he picked them because they were leaders and genuinely good people; they were the people the younger students could respect.

According to that logic, Lily didn't think any of the female prefects were likely to be promoted.

Lily knew that younger students didn't think much of her or her title. When they looked at her they saw a girl who was too loud, too assertive, too self-centered, and too nice to the Slytherins. Stopping the very popular James Potter from attacking the very unpopular Severus Snape (and yelling at James Potter a lot) didn't exactly invoke the love of her peers. Add to that that the younger prefects saw the way she acted in these meetings, zoning out during the pointless bits (most of the time, as it were), and her chances of Head Girl were non-existent.

Jenna and Jodie were insane. That isn't to say that they weren't good prefects, they were. They followed the rules to a tee and always respected figures of authority, but Lily didn't see admiration in the eyes of the first years they scolded for dropping books, eating too loudly, or arriving late to classes. But maybe Lily was bias since she did not like them much in their prefect modes, which was sad because Lily had known them pre-prefect and liked them both.

Out of all the girls, Lily would say the Slytherin prefect would be the most likely candidate. While she was more than a little intimidating and never, ever warm, Gertrude Wrightman wore her badge with pride, followed all the rules and held herself with something Lily could only describe as majesty. While she was intimidating and very unapproachable, Gertrude Wrightman fit Lily's picture of a Head Girl better than any other sixth year girl. Too bad Gertrude absolutely abhorred Lily.

Actually, if Lily were to choose the Head Boy, she would probably also choose the Slytherin sixth year. His housemates seemed terrified of him. As a result, they responded to his commands instantaneously. The rest of the houses, while not terrified of him, saw something in his character that made them take a step back him when he walked past. If that was respect, he deserved the title of Head Boy.

"Lily?" called a voice, pulling Lily from her thoughts. She looked up to notice every person in the room looking at her. She waved to the group, smiled self-mockingly, and met the gaze of a smug Diana as she said, "As you are the only member from your year and house, you realize that you have to speak, yes?"

"Of course," Lily began, "but I don't have a pressing problem to share, so if you would like to continue."

"Nothing?" Diana asked. "There's nothing troubling you?"

"Aside from food, Peeves, and lighted badges?" Lily said with a slight sarcasm laving her words. "Nope, nothing to complain about." Most of the prefects smiled and appreciated that Lily wanted to speed up the pointless meeting.

"There's nothing you'd like to change?" pressed Diana. Lily looked at the girl, wondering why this was so important to her, and raked her brain for something that bothered her.

"I suppose there must be something. Let me think," Lily said. Diana's face brightened and she motioned for Lily to stand and continue. "Can I go after the next group?"

"Of course," Diana said, motioning for the Slytherin seventh years to speak. Lily watched as they rose from their seats, watched the way the rest of the group moved subtly away from them, and the way the Slytherins packed closer together. Yes, there was something powerful about the two of them.

She let the voices of the prefects lull her into a sense of comfort as she zoned them out, perfectly her castle. She carved the stairs from Hogsmeade and wondered how she was going to make the Whomping Willow.

Lily turned back to her miniature castle and added bean-windows to a tower. Where was the Slytherin common room? Lily had visited the Hufflepuff tower and the Ravenclaw wing, but where did the Slytherins live? It couldn't be in the dungeons, could it? That would be just too-- Matt gently nudging her with her elbow bid her to look up and realize she was, once more, the center of attention in the room.

"All right," Lily began, standing. She saw many eyes glancing curiously at her miniature castle and so she pointed to it and said, "Isn't it adorable?" Many students chortled.

"I really don't have much to complain about in this castle-- the big one, I mean. I love the food, Peeves amuses me, and these lighted badges have saved me from a couple of detentions, but-- I don't know. It seems like not everyone's loving it here as much as me. Specifically, I mean Slytherin students." The room, which had been respectfully quiet a moment ago, was now crushingly silent.

"What do you mean?" Matt asked.

"Well, the other day a second year Ravenclaw dropped her things in the middle of the corridor and nearly everyone stopped to help her. A month ago, the same thing happened to a Slytherin and I was the only non-Slytherin to stop and help her," Lily said. She did not mention that fact that the Slytherin seemed anxious about Lily's help, like she didn't trust her to actually be kind. It was decidedly odd.

Lily looked around the room and noticed how uncomfortable this topic made everyone. The Ravenclaws glanced back and forth. The Hufflepuffs seemed contemplative. The Gryffindors looked shocked. Of all the houses, only the Slytherins met her gaze and in their eyes, Lily saw only doubt and disbelief, as if they did not think she could not really care.

"Even in this room, the Slytherins are grouped together to the side while the rest of the houses intermix," Lily noted.

"Maybe they don't want to sit by us. Maybe it isn't our fault," suggested a Ravenclaw fifth year. Lily shrugged.

"I'm not blaming anyone. I didn't make an effort to sit by you lot either," Lily replied, addressing the Slytherins. "I honestly wasn't going to address an issue in this meeting because it has been long enough already, but when the Slytherin seventh years stood up, the rest of the room shifted and it reminded me of that little girl who dropped her things and how everyone just walked around her." Lily sat and wondered why, exactly, she said any of that aloud.

"I, for one, do not believe that the Slytherin students are treated differently by the prefects or fellow students," announced Diana, standing up and losing respect as she did so. Everyone knew it happened, everyone had been party to such actions. "I know that were I to see such behavior I'd report it immediately--"

"You don't have to report it to anyone, Diana," Lily interrupted. "All you have to do is step in and help a student who drops her things."

"Of course. Of course, and then I would report anyone who didn't to the headmaster." Diana kept talking, but Lily stopped listening again. Diana was the most frustrating human ever. Lily did not normally talk this much in these meetings. Actually, she normally kept a low profile and counted the seconds until they were allowed to leave.

Soon after that discussion, Diana excused the seventh years from reporting their problems. Then she passed out the newest set of patrol times and dismissed them. Lily packed her things and started for the door when Matt caught her arm and turned her around.

"How many times would you say you've switched your patrol times?" he asked Lily. She had the distinct feeling that he had wanted to ask her this question for a while. The rest of the room was emptying.

"Only a few times last year, more this term. Why?"

"No reason. Only to mention that these times are non-transferable. It's difficult to organize these patrols even without changing duty times. Tell Remus that when he returns," Matt finished.

"All right," she replied. She wanted to leave, to curl up in the comfort of her bed and forget this whole mess of a meeting. But Lily sensed that Matt had something more he wanted to ask her. She waited. The room cleared.

"What you said about the Slytherins--" He stopped himself. Then he looked around the room to make sure it was clear before looking at Lily with those dull blue eyes that seemed so trusting and curious and honest. "Are you trying to be Head Girl?"

"No!" Lily exclaimed, confused. "In my wildest nightmares, being Head Girl is not something that I have to deal with." Matt said okay and goodbye, still regarding her strangely.


	8. The Movements of the Heavens

 

Lily hated memorizing the astrological meaning of stars. When studying this particular aspect of Astronomy, Lily felt too much similarity between Astronomy and Divination. As a Muggle-born girl with sensible parents and a skeptical sister, Lily found it difficult to distinguish between fortune telling and fairy tales.

She stacked her notes and huffed out her irritation. Why did she need to know that when Mars and Venus were close, people took it to mean that it would rain? Stargazing in order to predict the future was ridiculous. Lily let her eyes travel away from her book and over to the other person at her little table: James Potter. Why he insisted on joining her during these study sessions, she did not know. Why he silently read beside her, she could never guess.

At first it had been unsettling, the silence. Now, it was almost comfortable, which made it even more unsettling. Did that make any sense? No, but Lily knew it was true. To feel comfortable with James Potter meant that she was letting her guard down, and that was never a good idea around him. Then he had a tendency to hex you or break your heart, depending on the day.

He looked up and met Lily's gaze. Then he smiled and Lily started in her seat. She scanned the rest of the library, trying to spot Remus or Sirius Black or Peter Pettigrew. This had to be a prank. She looked back and saw James' smile had grown.

"What?" Lily asked, suspicious, uncomfortable, and deeply attracted to him at the same time. Then she wanted to throw a hand over her mouth in horror; had she really initiated conversation with James Potter? After nearly three months of silent Wednesday night study sessions, why did she suddenly want conversation?

"You look like a trapped Hippogriff.” He leaned closer to her and she leaned backwards. "I'm not going to curse you. I don't actually own a book called _One Hundred Way to Hex People_."

Lily blushed remembering the incident. He had bumped into her in the corridor and dropped his book and she had accused him of owning that book-- oh never mind. She had nothing to be ashamed of. He might very well have owned a book like that. So she replied, "What book was it, then, _Ways to Humiliate My Peers_?"

James smirked. "No. It was _The Merchant of Venice_."

"Shakespeare?"

"Do you know it?" James asked, still leaning forward. Lily shook her head. "It's written by a Muggle."

"And you're voluntarily reading it?" Lily asked, shocked, as she crossed her arms.

"I have to for Muggle Studies," James replied.

"I didn’t know you were in that class." Would wonders never cease? James Potter taking an interest in the Muggle world and Lily not knowing these last three years. And he must have done well on his O.W.L. too.

"Is that so hard to believe?" James asked.

"Yes."

"Because I shouldn't take such an easy course?" He smirked knowingly at Lily and she resisted the urge to laugh at him. He thought understanding Muggles was easy? Lily was raised a Muggle and she didn't know everything about them.

"No. Because you don't actually care about Muggles," said Lily.

"I care," he said defensively.

Not knowing what to say-- or more precisely not knowing what to say without insulting him-- Lily nodded and turned her eyes back to her book with all sorts of possible retorts jumping around her brain. But instead of being mean and spiteful, Lily reopened her notes and began riffling through them, feeling stupid for talking to him at all. Why was he still at her table, anyway? Why was he at her table and not speaking? Why wasn't he being his usual chatty self, gabbing on and on about himself?

"Could I use you for a Muggle Studies project?" James asked, startling her out of her bitter thoughts.

"Excuse me?"

"I have an assignment to ask a Muggleborn student what it is that they miss most about the Muggle world and what it is that they think they gave up to attend Hogwarts." Surprise rippled through Lily's arms and down into her fingertips. What a question. "Don't worry. You don't have to answer. I already wrote the essay, I just need a Muggleborn name to put on it."

"Why?" asked Lily, feeling vaguely disappointed that he did not care about her answer.

"Because the professor said she might check up on the sources." The fact that James could have asked a friend to lie for him was not lost on Lily. "So can I use your name?"

"Why not ask Remus, isn't his father a Muggle?"

"Yeah, but I thought the professor might find it suspicious if I used a friend." _And I'm not your friend,_ Lily thought, hurt though she knew she shouldn't be. She would never put James name of a list of her friends.

"Sure. Use my name," Lily said, shrugging.

"Really?" James asked, eyes wide. "I didn't think you'd say yes."

 _Then why'd you ask?_ Lily thought to say. Instead, she shrugged and turned back to her notes.

"Do you want to know what I wrote about?" James asked her.

"What?" Lily replied, looking back up at him.

"In my Muggle Studies essay. Do you want to know what I said you would miss the most?" James elaborated. Lily motioned for him to go ahead. "I wrote about televisions, telephones and whipped cream in spray bottles—"

"Whipped cream?" Lily asked, looking at him like he was crazy. "You think I regret giving up whipped cream?"

James gave her an incredulous look. "Yes. We don't have anything like that here, except shooting it out of a wand and that wouldn't work very well at all, we tried in class."

"You're--" _an idiot_ , Lily finished in her head. But instead of saying that aloud she kept it to herself and then said, "Never mind."

"Don't you miss whipped cream in a bottle?" James asked, looking crestfallen.

Thoughts of Petunia and Lily's pre-Hogwarts friends flashed across Lily's mind. Lily remembered the telephone ringing beside her bed and how excited she was to know it was Adriana. She remembered playing football on Sundays and traveling to Spain with her parents and sister. She thought about living in a world without fear of Voldemort, without blood prejudice. She recalled her childhood dreams that disappeared when she accepted the invitation to Hogwarts: learning to drive, going to a university, finding a boy to marry, having her parents understand and help fix all of her problems.

"Yes," Lily said, suddenly feeling quite sad, "I miss whipped cream in a bottle."

For the following Wednesdays before Christmas, James and Lily would remain silent once more. She, bothered deeply by the flippant way he treated her losses, kept silent to spite him. James, on the other hand, remained quiet for a different reason, one Lily would not learn of until months later. And boy would that reason tick her off.

 

 

**~*~*~**

Wearing a sweater and cloak over her usual uniform, Lily stood in the Entrance Hall with her hands buried deep in her pockets waiting for Remus to arrive for their schedule patrol. Sure, living in a castle had seemed like a great adventure when she was eleven years old, but now, at sixteen and with the cold month of December in full swing, Lily wished she had thought studying in the Bahamas had seemed like an adventure.

"Ready to go?" Lily turned to reply to the voice, thinking it was Remus, and was shocked to find Matt McGrath walking into the entrance hall, a small smile on his lips.

"Matt?" Lily asked, confused.

"Hello, Lily," he replied, inclining his head a bit as he came to a stop in front of her.

"What are you doing here?" Lily asked, shifting from foot to foot. It was cold.

"I'm replacing Remus on your patrol."

"Why?" asked Lily, deciding to start walking. Matt followed suit.

"Because he can't make it and you needed someone to accompany you. As I am Head Boy, that dubious honor falls to me," Matt said.

"Dubious? More like _coveted_. People would pay galleons to be in your place right now," Lily said, smirking. Matt's smile grew.

"Whether the honor is dubious or highly coveted, it's mine." As their footsteps echoed off the walls and shadows cast about their feet, the light from their badges shown brightly.

"Why couldn't Remus be here?" asked Lily, more to fill in the silence than to actually hear the answer. Remus always missed classes and the like-- he was obviously rather susceptible to disease.

"He said he had a pressing obligation at home," Matt replied, opening a door in order to peek inside one of the empty classrooms to their left.

"Then why didn't he reschedule the patrol?" asked Lily, staying in the hallway and not really feeling up to looking for students right then.

"Diana and I didn't want the prefects swapping patrol times anymore. One swap requires hours of work on our part," Matt explained as he left the room behind and rejoined Lily on their walk down the empty hall. "I think I mentioned this to you after the last meeting."

"Oh. That's right. I remember now," Lily said.

"You would have known about it before then if you ever bothered to pay attention in the meetings," Matt said

"And give up making food castles? Are you kidding?" Lily replied. She was unsure whether he was teasing or actually chastising her, but she did not really care either way. The meetings were boring.

"Last year I took notes at every meetings, and posted them in the Ravenclaw common room."

"And that is why you're a nerd and Head Boy and I never will be."

"I should hope not," he said, his tone implying that he had no doubt that Lily would never receive the position.

"I'm a little insulted, Matt. I wouldn't exactly destroy the castle," Lily retorted. "I might blind a few people and be sent to Azkaban, but aside from that I think everything would work out for the best."

"I meant that you could never be Head _Boy_ ," Matt explained, smiling fully. His entire face lit up and his dark blonde hair caught the light of the full moon in the window. Lily thought he looked great right then.

"Ah. So now I feel stupid."

"That's all right."

"But if I were made Head Girl-- which no one wants-- I'd let prefect switch patrols whenever they liked. Especially Remus. He normally switches the times almost immediately. If you ask him before you make the schedule, I'm sure he could tell you the nights he can't make it," Lily said, rubbing her hands together as she glanced down a corridor to her left, straining to hear any odd noises coming from that direction.

"He knows in advance?" Matt asked. Lily looked at him.

"Most of the time."

"That's interesting," Matt murmured before going silent. His eyes unfocused and Lily didn't know if she ought to say something to make him focus again or let him zone out. But Lily was not about to let this conversation end. Nights of silent patrolling next to Remus had taught her to value all discourse.

"Matt?" Lily said. She poked him in the shoulder when he didn't respond.

"Excuse me?" Matt asked, glancing at her.

"Nothing. You just seemed lost in thought."

"I was just thinking about-- never mind. Don't worry about it. Tell me, what are you thinking about for your seventh year project?" Matt asked, changing the subject abruptly as the pair began to traverse the wide corridor between the Charms and Transfiguration classrooms. Lily shrugged and briefly wondered why her hands just couldn't warm up.

"I was hoping to research the connection between activation charms and potions," Lily answered.

"What aspect of it?"

"Well, the connection between how an incantation affects both. How they exist in their dormant states, which has more deterioration and the like," Lily said, rattling off the answer she had memorized. If every fifth year was asked about O.W.L.s and third years asked which classes they were taking, every sixth year was asked what their seventh year project would be. It was highly irritating.

"You'll have to focus that a bit more. Seems too broad."

"It is, but as I'm still looking into a number of professions after school, I want to do a lot of research in this field and then see what appeals to me. It'll be better in the long run," Lily said, trying to make herself believe too. In actuality, the amount of work that lay in front of her was daunting. She almost wanted to take the lazy route and work on perfecting a single, very complex charm. But she would never do that, if only because she represented Muggleborns in general and refused to let people believe them to be either lazy or simpletons.

"I understand. My project is to make a potion form of the Impedimentia Charm."

"Isn't Impedimentia a hex?" Lily asked, stopping to let Matt open another door and look for students hiding in the classroom.

"Actually, in the technical sense, it's a charm. Hexes must be solely used to harm-- that must be the reason why the spell was created. An example would be the Boils Hex. No one can ever claim that was made with any intent other than to harm a person. The Unforgivables fall into that category, for example, but Impedimentia was originally used on small plants and animals to preserve them during the winter. Most think that the charm is a hex because they think it hinders a person's ability to move quickly. In reality, it creates a kind of time stop around the person or thing it's used on and creates a kind of stasis," Matt explained when he finished looking around the room and shut the door.

"Why not put the Stasis Charm on them?" Lily asked.

"This was before the Stasis Charm was invented. Impedimentia is one of the oldest charms in existence. There are legends about who created it, including theories that it was one of the founders or maybe even Merlin, though no one can either prove or disprove those theories," Matt said. "I'm sorry to be babbling on like this. I'm sure you don't care."

"No. I do care," said Lily, meaning it. "I only wish that I cared as much about my project as you do.

"It's all right, not many people like talking about the history of charms."

"Their loss, I guess," Lily said, turning left.

And thus the pair continued on their first patrol together. They walked as if they knew where they were going, as if they had traveled these paths before. They walked with conversation dancing in circles around them and for the first time in her two years of prefect duties, the night passed quickly.

 

 

**~*~*~**

"And then the way he pulled his broom up at the very end, just missing the goal post by inches. Wasn't it incredible? He just yanked it up and then BAM! I thought I was going to have a heart attack. It was tactically brilliant too. He distracted the keeper and the bludgers. Beautiful. The bludger hit the keeper! That was hilarious: it was a penalty against themselves. I couldn't believe it. And that kid is only a third year. He'll be brilliant by seventh year. Glad I'll be gone by then. Otherwise I might be worried more about Hufflepuff. And-"

"Is she breathing?" Lily asked Sam, eyeing Tracy kept gushing about the Hufflepuff/Slytherin Quidditch match.

"I think so," Sam said, rubbing her hands together as the four friends worked their ways down the stairs of Gryffindor tower.

"I'm so glad it's over," moaned Christine, clutching the railing. "It took _so_ long."

"-and in the fourth hour when he did the double back flip and then flew straight toward the ground, intercepting the Quaffle mid Mathews-Tuck-Pattern. I've never seen anything like that in my life. Well, in practice once-"

"I'm just glad we're going home tomorrow. I want my mum's hot cocoa," Lily said.

"You're secretly excited about the Ball," teased Sam, nudging Lily with her elbow and causing her friend to fall into a tiny first year on her left.

"Sorry," Lily murmured at the unfortunate little girl before turning back to Sam and glaring at her.

"And she should be," said Christine "She'll be in the same room as all of the seven Old Families, though not the heirs. Sam's going to the party. And so is Sirius. But still, she'll be with all of the most famous witches and wizards in today's society."

"Do you think Dumbledore will be there?" Sam asked before Lily could ask Christine what she was talking about.

"He hasn't gone to the Ball in the last seven years, and before that not in twenty years," Christine said.

"Why do you know that, Christine?"

Christine shrugged as they left the Gryffindor stands, Tracy still babbling.

"Did we invite him to my party?" Tracy asked, breaking her constant one-sided conversation in favor of a question. Lily turned and looked at her brunette friend.

"Who?"

"Gonzalo Ayala," Tracy replied.

"Once more, who?"

"The chaser, Lily, the chaser!"

"Oh. The Hufflepuff? He couldn't have been invited. You made a rule that no one under fifth year could be asked and you never break rules," Lily said.

"I never break rules for normal people, but did you see this kid's Corkscrew Dive? I'm going to find and invite him. I'll catch up with you later," Tracy said, waving as she ran off towards the changing rooms.

Lily turned back to find both Sam and Christine missing. They had wandered while Lily tried to decipher Tracy's incoherent babble. But Lily took it in stride, letting the large crowd (everyone who had gone to the game) usher her back toward the castle. Just as she thought to look around for a familiar face to chat with, a hand snaked out and grabbed her upper arm, painfully halting her movement.

Trying to wrench her arm out of the grasp of this stranger, Lily only caught a glimpse of the bludger that sped right in front of her-- being chased by several boys on brooms and one yelling referee-- right where she would have been had that person not grabbed her. She turned to question the person who grabbed her and found... no one. The hand on her arm was gone and the crowd was streaming past her, all commenting on the escaped bludger and speculating as to who had set it free. Who could have grabbed her arm? Had she imagined it? But then why did her arm still ache?

"Hello?" A tiny voice jarred Lily. "Hello, are you okay?"

"Excuse me?" Lily's eyes still searching the crowd for a possible attacker.

"I asked if you were all right." Giving up on finding the person, Lily turned to the speaker and was surprised to find a small boy looking up at her with wide eyes.

"I'm fine, thanks."

"Oh. Good." He smiled a toothy smile and stood in front of her, as if waiting for Lily to say something else. The crowd thinned around them as the rest of the students continued their trek toward the castle as Lily and the boy stood still.

"Did you see someone grab my arm?" Lily tentatively asked the boy, wondering if she was going crazy. Wouldn't that be just perfect? Insane Lily the Prefect.

"Uh-uh," said the boy, shaking his head left to right. "Did you think someone grabbed your arm?"

"No. I just-- I think I'm losing it. Too much work and all that," Lily said, laughing uneasily. The boy nodded.

"You're a prefect in Gryffindor, right?"

"Oh. Yes, I am," Lily said, finding it odd that this boy could identify her by her house and rank. "My name's Lily, what's yours?"

"Mine's Will," he said. "I'm in Ravenclaw."

"Will?" repeated Lily, looking closely at him and noticing that he looked vaguely familiar.

"Yes."

Her suspicions grew as she took in his dark blonde hair, though the light green eyes were different. "What year are you?"

"First."

"You wouldn't happened to be related to Tracy or Matt McGrath would you?" Lily asked.

"Yes! I'm their brother," Will replied, smiling that toothy grin again. For the first time, Lily let herself take in the image of this child. His Ravenclaw scarf was already frayed at the ends, his earmuffs were dirty and his shoes her covered in mud. Lily liked this boy; he looked like an eleven year old ought to look, like a child.

Lily smiled. "I've heard things about you, Will."

"Good things?"

"Things from Sam."

"Chad's sister?" Will's smile drooped into a frown.

"That's the one."

"She lies a lot," he said seriously, his eyes big. Lily laughed.

"I think, little first year, that we're going to get along quite well," Lily said, slinging an arm over his shoulders and leading him back to the castle.

It wasn't until much later into the night, as Lily was lying in her bed, that she looked on her upper left arm and found a large hand-shaped bruise forming that she began to wonder what had really happened on the journey back from the Quidditch pitch and why a stranger would save her from the path of a bludger and then disappear.


	9. Teenage Problems

J

Sometimes Hogwarts can be the most magical place on Earth. It invites even the most outcast child to find friends to love, laugh, and live with. Hogwarts is the manifestation of every child's daydreams, from secret passages in the corridors to magical ways to avoid and cause trouble to flying on broom a hundred feet in the air.

Paradoxically, Hogwarts can be a thing of nightmares. Through a sorting process, it fosters competition and animosity between people who otherwise might have been close. It grows cold and windy in the winter seasons, with creeping shadows around every corner and pictures watching their every movement. It forces children to learn gruesome histories, driving prejudice against dwarfs and goblins. It gives to eleven year olds the ability to control their peers-- keep them from moving, make them cheery or sad.

As Lily rested her head against the window of her train compartment on her way home for the winter holiday, she reflected upon the incongruity of Hogwarts. For a place dedicated to education, why was the school motto a threat, "Never tickle a sleeping dragon"? Why was one house cast as villains, another as heroes, one as bookworms, and the last normally overlooked?

Her words in the last prefect meeting had not exactly improved her relations with the other prefects. Now the girls thought she was vying for Head Girl (a position Lily held little-to-no respect for) and the boys began to think she was a rabble rouser. Only the Slytherins (for whom she had been advocating) did not change their behavior, distant and distrustful.

A sudden jerk of the train banged Lily's head against the window and she wondered why, exactly, a magical train could not provide a smoother ride.

When the compartment door opened a moment later-- Lily clutching her head-- she didn’t bother to look up, expecting one of her friends or maybe the cart. Instead she heard a vaguely familiar gasp of surprise. Then the stranger's hands were on hers, pulling them away from the bruise to get a better look.

"What happened?" James asked.

She forced her head and eyes up to meet his and there was a familiar moment of apprehension as she met and kept his gaze. Why was James Potter in her compartment? Why were his warm hands holding her so gently and sending tingles through her entire body? Why couldn't she speak? Why were his eyes so disarming?

"Are you all right?" James asked, looking so sincere that Lily wanted to run away. He looked so good. She coughed a couple of times, managing to take her hands out of his to cover her mouth as she nodded.

"I'm fine. I'm fine. I only banged my head against the window," Lily said. He withdrew and stood, forcing her up as well to stop feeling small and caught. 

"Oh. I thought--" He halted. Lily waited, looked at his too-ruffled hair and his too-brown eyes. She hadn’t told her friends about his Wednesday evening vigil at her study sessions. She hadn’t told them he came every week, without missing a single night, never saying a word unless she initiated the conversation.

"Were you looking for Tracy?" Lily asked, since it was the only reasonable explanation for his visit.

James jolted, eyebrows drawn together, but paused mid head-shake. Nodded. Acted like a crazy person, basically. "I don't suppose you'd know the name of her house, do you?"

"Gryffindor?" she asked, thinking that was a pretty ridiculous question.

"Well spotted. No. Her home, for the floo network," said James with an air of condescension that put Lily on guard.

"I don't know what talking about," Lily said in clipped tones.

"That's right," James said, as if talking to himself. "You're a Muggle-born. How do you visit her?"

"I walk."

"You walk? Why not fly?" asked James.

"I could, if I were an idiot. But as she just moved to my Muggle area last June, it would be a bit awkward." Her irritation grew. She definitely preferred him as he was during her Wednesday night vigils: beautiful and silent.

"You could use a chameleon spell—"

"And break wizarding law while I'm at it?" Lily practically spat at him. The result was a mix of anger, confusion, and pride flashing across his features. It made her even angrier to realize that he thought he had any right to be angry with her.

"I do it all the time--"

"Good way to put the entire society at risk then. Well played, you arrogant arse."

James' face changed into a delightful shade of red. "You act like you know everything. Has it ever occurred to you imyoy could learn something from me,  Muggleborn?”

Lily's delight vanished.

"Get out," Lily hissed, so angry she wasn't seeing straight.

"What?"

"Get out. Get out!" Lily shoved James out the door, slammed and locked the door with several charms. And then Lily was left in her empty compartment with only her tears and waning self-worth.

 

**~*~*~**

Seeing her parents on the platform did much to clear her mind of the horrible words of James Potter. They stood chatting with some other parents, laughing. Lily was proud of her parents, of the way they accepted magic as a new and interesting journey for the family, of the way they made friends so easily, of their casual ability to make strangers laugh. She was glad that the depth of their knowledge of the magical world was happy, that they knew nothing of the prejudice stretching to the far corners of the magical community.

When they spotted their youngest daughter struggling to pull her heavy trunk off the train, they stopped their conversation immediately and came over to assist her.

Mr. Evans quickly loaded her trunk onto the cart they had brought and Mrs. Evans enveloped her in an embrace. Never again in her life would Lily feel as safe as she did at that moment, with the smell of her mother's perfume consuming her and her father effortlessly carrying her heavy belongings.

 

**~*~*~**

"Where's your head, Lily?" called out a voice to Lily's left. She looked over to see Adriana Brewster with her hands waving in the air, motioning for Lily to hurry up. It surprised Lily to see how far away Adrianna had gotten. Lily had paused for just a moment to stare at the empty football field. Jogging over, Lily smiled apologetically.

"What were you looking at? Did you spot Wizzard or something? I can't imagine another reason you could want to stop in this cold," Adriana said, shoving her gloved hands further into the protective warmth of her coat pockets.

"What?" Lily's hands remained motionless outside her own pockets. She forgot even the cold as she scrambled to cover-up what Adriana must have figured out.

"Because, if you did spot them, you'd let your oldest friend know. Right?" Adriana asked, turning around to drag Lily by the elbow and force her to walk again.

"What are you talking about?" Lily asked, pulling her arm out of Adrianna's grasp.

"The group, Wizzard?" Seeing Lily's blank look, Adriana looked devastated as she spun around and waved her hands in front of Lily's face. She was a rather lively person. "I know you live in some sort of a cult at your boarding school, but even there they must've heard of Wizzard."

"Really, I haven't the faintest."

"'Angel Fingers'? 'See My Baby Jive'?" Lily shook her head. "They were huge for a while. Back in September their song 'Angel Fingers' went to number one, but they haven't had anything new in a while. I own their record."

"Neat," said Lily, trying not to let Adriana's condescending, proud tone bother her.

"Just because you and... well, your entire school seem to have bad judgment doesn't mean that you should miss out." In her heart, Lily felt the same way. Lately it seemed Lily's separation from her Muggle roots was becoming more permanent. Lily was leaving behind the simple things she had known as a girl-- things like knowing the most popular musical group at the moment-- in exchange for the prejudice of a society that wanted, as James had made so clear, nothing to do with her.

"I like the classic songs," Lily said.

In a desperate attempt to remain somewhat attached to the Muggle world, Lily had agreed to spend more time with her childhood best mate. Adriana Brewster lived four houses down from Lily and had been a most adorable child. She had had large blue eyes and pig-tailed blond hair that had every mother cooing. Until she was eleven, Lily had accepted the fact that she would never be as fun or interesting as Adriana. Then, of course, came the owl and the letter and magic.

"Oh. Like the Beatles?" replied Adriana in a very understanding voice. Lily snorted.

"I wouldn't exactly call them classics."

"Aren't they good enough for you?"

"I like them, I meant they aren't old enough to be classics," Lily amended, trying to avoid fighting with this girl who she truly meant to like.

It had been a surprise to find Adriana on the other side of the front door this morning for a few reasons. The first was that Adriana was with five other people that all remembered Lily and gave her a hug. She, unfortunately, couldn't remember any of them. Then, of course, the biggest shock was how Adriana looked. Her blond hair had been dyed black, unnecessary sunglasses covered her blue eyes, and her adorable childhood features had turned into over-exaggerated and odd adult features.

The only thing about Adriana that hadn't changed was her commanding personality. From the moment she opened the door until she would later arrive home, Lily was swept up in a flurry of conversations, strange antics, exuberant hand gestures, and uncomfortable questions about her own school.

"Your friends were nice," Lily said as the two turned onto their block.

"They were your friends once too, and if you hadn't dropped off the face of the planet they still would be," said Adriana.

A shot of cold went through Lily's heart that had nothing to do with the temperature. Adriana was right. If it weren't for magic, this would have been her future, her normal holiday fun. She would have lived in a world where she was respected for her sharp mind and reasoning. She would live in a world where she would _belong_.

"I wonder if I would've been happier if I'd stayed," Lily said, surprising herself. Adriana looked over and gave her a half-smile.

"I doubt it. I'm sure your exotic school is better than the humdrum life I live." And Lily remembered flying for the first times, freezing a fellow student in the Game, receiving her prefect badge, looking up at the ceiling in the Great Hall, buying her wand.

"I'm happy at my school. Only having a momentary trouble."

"A bloke?"

"Yes."

"Why don't you come over to mine, have my mum make us some hot chocolate and you tell me about it," Adriana suggested. Lily considered for a moment. "Come on. I don't know any of your friends so you can tell me all the bad things about them and be assured that they won't hear about it. Where's the harm?"

Lily smiled and nodded before following her friend.

 

**~*~*~**

"That was a long movie yesterday," said Mrs. Evans as Lily walked into the kitchen the next morning.

"We stopped over at her house afterward for a talk," replied Lily as she went over to where her mother was rolling out cookie dough and pinched a bit of it off to munch on.

"That's nice," said Mrs. Evans as Lily walked over to the counter and picked up a banana, peeling it as she made her way to the kitchen table.

"Yeah," said Lily. "Do you want me to decorate those cookies?"

"If you'd like to, the sprinkles are on the table," said Mrs. Evans, motioning with her head to the area in front of where Lily now sat munching on her fruit.

"All right."

"So, did Adriana help you sort out the thing that's been bothering you?" Mrs. Evans asked as she cut shapes out of her cookie dough and put them on a pan.

"Bothering me?" asked Lily as she took another bite of her banana. "Why do you think something's bothering me?"

"Well, you enthusiastically trimmed the tree, wrapped presents for your grandparents, shopped for friends, performed slight-of-hand tricks, listened somewhat-politely to stories of Petunia's classes, baked cookies with me, and even tried to avoid picking a fight with your sister on Christmas day."

"And those were giveaways?" Lily asked, walking over to throw away her banana peel.

"Yes.

"What if I simply matured?" Lily asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You didn't, did you?"

"Well, no," pouted Lily, "and to answer your question, no she did not help me with my problem."

"Did she try to?" Mrs. Evans asked as she smashed the extra dough together again before rolling it out one more time.

"Yes, but she couldn't understand."

"Understand what?"

"Anything about magic."

"Are your problems magical?"

"No. They're boy-related, but the magical part is important because that's my life now, you know?"

"It doesn’t change who you are, dear. Only adds a few more sparkles."

Lily was trying to figure out how to talk about Muggleborns and purebloods, death curses and secret armies when a knock on the Evans' door at the early hour shocked both Lily and her mother.

"Were you expecting anyone?" Mrs. Evans asked, wiping her hands on her apron.

"No. It's too early to have people over," Lily said, "but maybe it's Adriana."

"Well, go open the door and find out, silly girl."

When Lily opened the door it was an even bigger surprise. Outside her house stood Tracy, Sam, and Matt.

"Hi! What are you lot do if here?” Lily asled, trying not to look too shocked that her friends decided to pay her a visit at seven in the morning.

"We wanted to see you," Sam said. "And since Tracy moved here in June, I can't believe you've not visited one another."

"I'm a horrible friend," Lily said, shrugging.

"We're going icing," announced Tracy without preamble. Matt snorted.

"She means ice skating," he supplied, holding up his skates.

"Do you even know how to skate, Tracy?" Lily asked, smiling and wondering where her own skates might be found.

"Matt taught me last year," Tracy said. Lily looked at Sam.

"I'm an old pro," Sam replied, flipping her black hair over her shoulder.

"Where's Christine?" Lily asked. To her surprise, Matt answered.

"Stumpy's having dinner with her grandparents," Matt offered. Lily frowned. Christine would have loved to learn something so Muggle, or at least she would have made the experience a lot more entertaining.

"Are you coming?" Tracy asked. Lily nodded, ran back into the kitchen, asked her mother if she could go, and went searching through her old skates for a pair that fit.

Her two friends and Matt took it upon themselves to come inside and chat with Lily’s parents. Luckily, Petunia was out, but Sam quickly found and started talking to Mrs. Evans as Tracy discussed school with Mr. Evans, who was putting the cookies into the oven.

"Do you want me to _Accio_ them?" Matt asked, sitting on Lily's desk to observe her as she tried and failed to find anything in the mess that was her room. She threw aside her covers, as though her skates might have been hidden in them before she dove into her closet.

"No."

"You're not going to find them this way," Matt said as a shoe went whipping out of the closet and past his head. He took the opportunity to move closer to the closet and see what Lily was doing. Unfortunately, Lily took that same opportunity to throw another shoe out of the closet and hit him right in the nose. His shout of pain caught Lily's attention.

"Oh no!" Lily said, trying not to laugh at the sight of the Head Boy clutching his nose and glaring at her. "I'm so sorry!"

"Right," Matt said, gingerly holding his nose, "I'm summoning your skates for my own health." He quickly used the spell and soon sharp blades flew out of the desk and towards him. Lily snatched the skates by the laces before they could do him any harm.

"So now you know that my house is a danger zone," Lily said, half joking. Matt laughed and nodded as they both stood and went to the living room. There, Mr. And Mrs. Evans were chatting with Tracy and Sam about the giant squid.

"I found them," Lily announced, holding up her stakes as if to prove her point.

"Great, let's go," Tracy said, standing and clapping her hands. Mr. and Mrs. Evans smiled at the four teens as they headed out the door.

The day outside looked wretched: ice patches covered the sidewalk and touching the metal fence around Lily's home hurt her hand. It was too cold too properly move without feeling pain shoot through a person's body. Lily wondered at once about the decision of her friends to pick this, of all days, to go ice-skating. When a blast of cold air hit her face, she outright asked them.

"It was Christine's idea originally," explained Sam.

"But she's not here."

"Stumpy failed to realize that as a problem," put in Matt. He looked at Lily for a moment and she sensed that there was something in his look. Actually, she immediately jumped to the conclusion that Matt felt something for Christine. They had known each other since they were toddlers and were closer than Matt and any of Tracy's other friends. If he ever patrolled with Lily again, she would be sure to ask him.

"I'm sad she's not here," Lily said.

"Me, too," Tracy agreed. "And I'm sad that you won't be coming to my party."

"You won't? Why not?" Matt asked.

"She has a date with a boy she doesn't like," replied Sam. Lily glared at her but she pretended not to notice.

"Don't worry, Lily. I do that all the time- date people I'm not interested in," jested Matt.

"Doesn't everyone?" Lily retorted, but for the rest of the journey she remained quiet, only offering commentary every now and again.

In the meantime, the friends crossed three streets and came over and found one of Matt's new Muggle friends waiting for them at this early hour. Lily barely even registered the face of the stranger as she went to the rink and skated with her friends. Her mind was occupied with thoughts of Christian and the date that never should have been. AS the day drew on and grew warmed, she had glumly decided she really couldn't cancel at this point but it didn't keep her from wishing she could.

 

**~*~*~**

New Year's Eve came with a bout of good weather (well, not good, but bearable) and a plummeting of Lily's spirits. She loved the Christmas holidays, loved sitting with her family as they told stories of what happened since August, loved hot cocoa and marshmallows on a cold day, loved walking in the crisp night air with her father as he lit the candles that lined their walkway, loved the smell of snow and the warmth of home. What she did not love was attending exclusive, expensive Balls with a boy she did not want to date and room full of strangers she did not want to meet. But she knew she could not back out of an accepted invitation and so she woke on New Year's Eve with a sense of responsibility and no little dread.

Lily went over to Tracy's near noon on that day, knowing that Christian would not meet her until six and hoping to spend a few good hours with her friends before they began working on her make-up and outfit. Christine had other plans. As she neared Tracy's house, Christine's tall blond form bounded out of the house and toward Lily at a speed that made Lily wonder if the girl had ever played Seeker.

"You have to get ready. Now. Now. Now. Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!"

"Who are you?" Lily asked when Christine went behind Lily and started pushing her so as to speed her up. "The abominable repeating blonde girl?"

"Hurry," Christine said, beginning to push Lily in earnest. Lily gave up and jogged the rest of the way to the McGrath home. She spent the rest of the day preparing for the Ball, dodging Christine's poking, and ignoring her repeated comments about how important the Ball was. And so the day progressed, the hours of the day slipping away as Lily played dress up.

Sam, Christine, and Tracy helped her magically alter her strapless red gown, replaced the purse she brought over with a black clutched charmed to be five sizes bigger on the inside, and applied her magical make-up. They did let wear the black shoes she'd brought over, but Tracy's mother loaned Lily a shawl (with heating charm) and purse (magically enlarged inside) to match the outfit and when Lily stood in front of the floor-length mirror in Tracy's room, she could not help but feel immensely feminine.

"I can't believe that's me," Lily muttered, poking the mirror.

Tracy rolled her eyes, Sam smiled, and Christine babbled on about the press that would be at the event.

"I need to do something with my hair," Lily said, looking at her friends in the mirror. They each turned their eyes to her hair.

"You don't need to do a thing with it," said Mrs. McGrath. She picked up a strand of Lily's hair and let it fall back down. "Your hair's stunning on its own, the way it falls straight and curls at the bottom is gorgeous. Besides, having your hair down will remind the stuffy politicians that you're still young. It'll make them jealous."

"Thank you," Lily said, smiling genuinely, though the comment about stuffy politicians did serve to remind Lily that this wasn't exactly a date she was excited about. "Thank you all so much--" A doorbell interrupted her thanks. She spent enough time in Tracy's house to know the sound of a magical doorbell.

"Who's that?" Christine asked Tracy.

"I asked some people to help with decorations. It must be the streamers," Tracy replied casually. Too casually. Lily tensed.

"What've you done?" Lily asked.

"Nothing," Tracy replied, heading out of her room. Christine and Mrs. McGrath followed suit, the latter nodding encouragingly at Lily before leaving. Lily chanced one more look in the mirror and still felt satisfied with the results. She felt good. It almost made going to the Ball worth it, being able to dress up like this. She wished James could see her like this.

Oh. Bad thought. Stupid, mean, vindictive bugger. If he saw her he'd probably laugh and tell her to go back to the Muggle world.

"Thinking about what James would say about the outfit?" Sam asked. Lily started and then glared at Sam, who was leaning a shoulder against the far wall.

"No."

"Right," Sam said, sounding sincere, but Lily knew her better than that. Lily wished Sam would stop doing that mind-reading thing.

Mrs. McGrath came back in before Lily could respond. "It's almost five-thirty. You ought to start heading home."

"You're going to the Ministry Ball," Christine said, coming back in to hug Lily goodbye and grinning like the Cheshire cat.

"You'll have more fun here," Lily said, stepping out the embrace.

"I know, but you might meet Tim Duncan!"

"Who's--"

"It really is time you went home. I'll walk with you," Sam interrupted. Lily turned and nodded as her friend, agreeing. Then the redhead carefully picked up her purse, draped her shawl around her shoulders, and headed for the exit. She left the clothes in which she had come in Tracy's room. She would pick them up in the morning.

"Tracy, where did you want these? I thought people weren't allowed upstairs--" called someone carrying a box blocking their face. But Lily did not need the face to know the person: James. She swallowed hard as he lowered the boxes to the ground, shouting, "I'm leaving these here. You figure out where they go."

Then his eyes swiveled around the corridor and Lily caught her breath when they landed on her and looked her up and down. He looked-- he looked fabulous. Utterly perfect with his windswept hair and even the dorky glasses, which she found strangely attractive, but when his eyes met hers Lily could only hear the echo of his voice calling her a muggleborn.

"Hello," said Sam. For a moment, Lily felt betrayed that her friend would speak to him. Then she remembered that she hadn't told Sam.

"I thought you weren't coming," he said to Lily, ignoring Sam and irritating Lily in the processes. He ruffled his hair to make it stand on end. Then he realized what he was doing and stopped.

"I'm not," Lily said shortly. "I'm leaving."

"Oh. Well. You look..." his voice trailed off and Lily looked around to see if any of his friends were around, about to ambush her. This must be a set up.

"She looks what?" asked Christine stepping out into the hallway beside Lily and Sam. Lily would have hit her friend if she hadn't been so embarrassed.

"She looks like she belongs on my arm," he finished, looking Lily with a sly twinkle in his eye.

"You wouldn't be ashamed to have a Muggle on your arm?" snapped Lily. His shocked and embarrassed look did little to curb her anger as she marched past him, down the stairs, out Tracy's door and towards her home with Sam jogging to keep up.

 

**~*~*~**

The walk to her house, at least, made up for the misery that was talking to James Potter. Lily and Sam laughed and caught up with one another. They spoke about little things that neither would remember in a day. All they would remember about this conversation was a feeling of happiness and joy. It's easy, when with a best friend, to let the problems you face slip away. It is easy to forget the drama of dating and the hassle of school. As snow fell and Lily charmed her hair dry and Sam slipped on a patch of ice, the two girls' cares were whisked away by the wind. All that remained was wonderfully mindless gossip.

"Did I mention that James invited Ian to Tracy's?" Sam asked, sounding too casual.

"No," Lily said, surprised. "Is he coming?"

"I think so," Sam said, smiling. "Actually, I came with you hoping to run into him."

"So you're using me?" Lily teased, nudging Sam with her shoulder.

"Basically." They smiled as they reached the door to Lily's home. Then the two girls turned to say goodbye and Sam, who was usually very reserved and very shy person, surprised Lily by pulling her into a tight hug.

"Be careful tonight," murmured Sam into Lily's hair. "They'll be watching you."

"Who?" asked Lily, holding her friend.

"Everyone." Sam let Lily go so that she could back up and lock her dark brown eyes on Lily's green ones. "You're a Muggle-born girl on the arm of the eldest son of one of England's most prominent families. Everyone will be watching you."

"Oh." And with that pleasant thought, the two parted ways.

"Just be careful."


	10. Before She Thrice Defied Him

All done up in her lovely red gown, strappy black shoes, and shawl, Lily paced irritably in her living room. The wait was excruciating. She refused to sit and wrinkle the dress, but at the same time Lily felt like yelling at the makers of the _Courteously Cushioned Shoes Cushions._ Liars. Those stupid shoemakers were just plain liars. Her feet already ached, and she had not even left her home yet.

When she heard a soft knock on the front door, Lily glanced at the clock and began playing with the charm on her necklace, unexpectedly nervous. The knock, of course, was perfectly on time. Christian was always prompt. She took two steps toward the door-- toward this Ball that she did not want to attend-- when Mrs. Evans rushed past her to answer the door before her daughter.

"Hello, hello, hello. Aren't you the picture of a prince?" Faith Evans greeted Christian as she ushered him inside. Lily felt even more nauseous, like she might have a headache at any moment. Her mother was so embarrassing. In fact-- Oh good grief! Her mother was crying as she looked between Lily and Christian. 

"Mum," moaned Lily, her face lighting up to match the color of her hair. "Stop."

"Sorry, Lily, but you look so grown up. You aren't my little baby anymore," said her mother, taking Christian by the hand and leading him into the living room. "Your father's trying to work out how to use the camera. Just sit here and I'll find him."

And so, as quickly as she had arrived, Mrs. Evans was gone. In her wake stood an uncomfortable Lily and a perfectly rigged Christian Knowles.

"Thank you for escorting me to the Ball," Christian began. She looked over at him and couldn't help but notice that he looked amazing. Painfully amazing. So utterly perfectly amazing. Why, oh why, couldn't he have been enough for her?

"My friends said this Ball was a very big ordeal."

"I don't normally attend it. My parents traditionally go, but this year they had a prior engagement in Japan that couldn't be missed. The Minister of Magic is there as well." His distant tone made Lily cringe, but she was saved from responding when Faith bustled in, her husband and older daughter in tow.

Petunia said nothing as she looked at Lily and Christian, smiling a tight-lipped smile despite what seemed like her best efforts. She caught Lily's eye and nodded approvingly at Christian. Lily resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at her sister. She was above that sort of behavior. Almost.

"This is such a big day for our Lily," Mrs. Evans said, wiping away yet another tear.

"I'm ready," called out Mr. Evans from behind the large, awkward camera. Lily remembered the compact cameras of the magical world, ones that required no technological breakthroughs to work.

"Before we take pictures," said Christian, turning to Lily and extending his wand towards her, "I have a bouquet for Lily."

A dozen of red flowers sprouted from the end of his wand, lightly decorated with white ferns. As Faith and Petunia gave off shouts of surprise and then murmurs of delight, Lily felt embarrassment for them. That particular spell was not even taught at school, it was so basic. Her family was so easily impressed.

She took the flowers with a small smile, and then stood beside Christian for many minutes as her father's camera flashed and flashed and flashed, leaving her dazed and blinking rapidly to rid herself of the spots that clouded her vision. But soon the flashing ended and Lily hugged her parents before Christian took her hand and led her out the front door.

"We aren't flooing, are we?" asked Lily as she took her hand out of his in order to hold the flowers and discourage further attempts at awkward hand-holding.

"No," he said. "We'll ride in my father's car."

"Are you driving?" She remembered the way Ian had only half-jokingly explained the purpose of traffic lights to Christian. If that was the extent of his knowledge of the road, Lily did not want to get in the car that waited for them at the end of her walkway, even if it was a limo. A really nice black limo. A really nice, really large, luxurious limo.

"The car drives itself," explained Christian, opening the door in the back and motioning for Lily to climb in. The car was even larger on the inside, fitted with couches and a bar on the side. Lily's eyes widened, but she did not go in.

"What do you mean, the car drives itself?"

"We tell it where to go, and it takes us there."

"The Knightbus has a driver," protested Lily.

"The Knightbus isn't really on the same level as this car. I promise it's safe," said Christian, placing his hand on the small of Lily's back and leading her into the car. He followed a moment later. Once inside, he walked (yes, walked, because the ceiling was high) to a couch beside the bar and settled in. Lily felt the car begin to move and sat down on the first available seat.

The windows allowed Lily to watch the landscape of houses and roads flash past at impossible speeds. But while the outside was busy moving, Lily and Christian remained stagnant inside, lacking dialogue and camaraderie. By the time the car began slowing to a stop, twenty minutes had crept by at a pace akin to forever and Lily's stomach was in knots. Why had she agreed to come to this thing anyway?

"We're here," Christian said, standing and walking over to open the door for Lily. When she left the car, feelings of insecurity washed over her and she was glad to remember that her wand was in her purse.

"Where, exactly, is this?" asked Lily. "It looks like a dark, deserted alley."

"The only way into or out of the Crystal Ball is by Portkey. This is where guests receive their Portkey. It's hidden from all but invited guests and those they choose to share the information with. That's why there aren't photographers here," explained Christian in what Lily considered a condescending tone. Lily, who was growing more and more annoyed by her lack of knowledge, never paused to consider the fact that Ian and she had spent the majority of the summer hols laughing at Christian's ignorance about all things Muggle.

A blue mist fell upon the alley and Lily instinctively reached out for Christian's hand, only for him to drag her further into the mist. Lily followed behind his echoing footsteps, followed though her senses told her it was a mistake.

Even as the warning bells in her head rang out, Lily ignored them. This was Christian, the bloke from the supermarket who hadn't understand plastic bags. He had lied about liking dogs in order to spend time with Lily. And over the course of their two and a half-month relationship, they had shared wonderful, private kisses and expensive dinners. They had had an anniversary. Lily hoped she was a good enough judge of character to be able to trust, at least, in Christian.

When Christian's footsteps stopped, so did the mist. As the blue haze dissipated, the form of a tall, regal gentleman formed in front of Lily. Wearing black dress robes, he stood with grace and posture that made Lily envious. After too many lessons with her mother to count, Lily still slouched more than stood. Still, there was something not right about the way this man looked. His eyes seemed vacant, as though he wasn't quite real.

"Mr. Christian Knowles and guest," announced Christian. His loud voice did not echo. Instead, it grew and grew around them. What was happening?

"Two for table twenty-seven," replied the man, inclining his head toward them both. Even though his voice was normal and his manner natural, Lily could not shake her initial unease. Her wand rested in her purse, but was there really a cause to fear? Christian didn't seem to think so. Why should she? But when something materialized in the hand of the stranger, Lily took out her wand and pointed it at him without a second thought.

"Lily, put your wand away," said Christian, sounding mortified.

"It's all right, sir. I can assure you the Auror Director was far faster with her wand than your guest," replied the man, smiling. Christian reached over and lowered Lily's wand for her as she had not done so herself. But she knew (knew in the place in her heart that she listened to during the Game) that the dull unintelligence hiding in this man's eyes was not normal.

"It's our Portkey, Lily," explained Christian, picking the freshly conjured object out of the man's hands. It was a red, long-stemmed rose.

"It's set for seven thirty and takes fifteen minutes to recharge, as is custom," the man elaborated. The rose hardly mattered. What mattered was the way the man could not focus on Lily's eyes, never met her gaze.

"Place your hand on the rose please, Lily," Christian said. Lily did so, even as she continued looking at the man out of the corner of her eye. The abrupt pull behind Lily's naval and disappearance of the alley was unpleasant, unexpected, and wholly unwanted. As was the even more abrupt landing and new scenery, including bright lights that forced Lily's eyes to adjust. In fact, the only pleasant thing about the trip was the warm voice that greeted them.

"Welcome to the Crystal Ball, Mr. Knowles, Miss Evans." When her eyes adjusted to the light, Lily saw before her a pretty witch in black dress robes that matched those of the man who gave them the Portkey. But this woman's eyes weren't oddly unfocused. In fact, her brown eyes sparkled. "Please follow me to your table."

As they maneuvered through the room, Lily let her eyes wander. This was supposed to be one of the most famous parties of the year, or so Tracy and Sam and Christine claimed. The decorations should be spectacular, they had assured her. The Crystal Ball did not disappoint. It was exquisite.

Near the high ceiling, pixies and faeries flew overhead, leaving trails of sparking golden light in their wake. Those trails fell gently from their lofty position, moving like fallen stars as they illuminated the room. Only after a few minutes, when the trails fell to the height of the tallest guest, did the light fade. There were more than a thousand of those creatures, circling in their magically confined space not even a meter from the ceiling, Above them, the roof was black, setting the tone for the coloring of the party.

The tables-- of which they were nearly fifty-- were covered with black cloth and golden plates, goblets, silverware, and even golden flowers. Even the black cloth, Lily realized as she inspected one, glittered faintly with gold. The golden dance floor lay near the Portkey landing area while the large podium sat in the middle of long wall. At their table (one on the far left side, if the wall with the podium was the front), four elder guests already sat, chatting.

As Lily took her seat, she looked around the room and took note of the guests. Only half the seats were taken, though she and Christian had arrived thirty minutes late. She briefly wondered if anyone else would attend, but quickly answered her own question. Of course the rest of the guests would come to the largest social gathering of the year, they merely wanted to arrive fashionably late and be seen arriving at the party.

"Is there anything you'd like to drink?" Christian asked.

"A water, please."

Whatever she expected Christian to do-- stand and find a waiter, call out to someone across the room at the hidden bar-- she certainly did not think he would look at his plate and say, "water," though that's exactly what he did. About to tell him she thought he was insane, Lily watched in wonder as her goblet filled itself with water in front of her.

"Fabulous," Lily gasped. Then, remembering years of manners and unsure how else to use them, she directed her voice at the plate and said, "Thank you."

The adults at the table laughed and Lily smiled at them, lifting her glass in a self-mocking toast to herself. The assembled guests smiled back, most inclining their heads in acknowledgement of her toast.

"Don't mind their reactions, dear. Your good manners only highlight our own shortcomings," said the woman to Lily's left. Lily turned to direct herself at the gracious stranger. She was middle aged, maybe, with soft brown hair in a polite up-do. Her black gown was conservative, falling to the floor, while her golden gloves ended just above the elbow. She perfectly matched the Ball's color scheme.

"Are the plates enchanted?" Lily asked, but instead of the woman who had spoken answering, the man to her left did.

"No. It's the work of house elves."

"Like at Hogwarts." They both nodded.

"Is that where you studied?" asked the woman.

"It's where I'm still studying, actually."

"Forgive me, you look too old for Hogwarts," said the woman, her eyes wide and disbelieving. Lily laughed and shook her head.

"Nope, still only seventeen years old."

"What I wouldn't give to be only seventeen years old again," sighed the woman. The man laughed, loudly. "What?"

"You hated being seventeen, Cordelia. You were too young to boss everyone around," teased the man. Lily smiled.

"I do not boss people around." As their play fight (at least Lily hoped it was a play) continued, Lily turned her attention back to Christian. In this sparkling light, looking at his profile as he stared at the podium, Lily wondered why his beautiful face and kind personality were not enough to make her happy. Why wasn't that good enough for Lily? Why had she felt like she needed something more than to date this kind boy? Why, when she thought of dating a boy, was the face she imagined not Christian's but instead the boy who sat quietly in the library every Wednesday night.

"Do you mind?" Christian asked her. Lily mentally shook herself, what was he asking? Would she mind what? Then she saw the pretty girl standing next to Christian looking at her with barely hidden resentment. "Do you mind if I dance with Charlotte?"

"No. Of course not," replied Lily. When the two left the table, Lily sat watching them.

"If my husband ever asked my permission to dance with another woman that looked at me like that, I'd hit him over the head with my purse," quipped the woman to Lily's left. Lily looked over and noticed that the man was no longer there.

"Well, Christian's not my husband."

"If my husband had asked me to allow him to dance with another girl when we were seventeen and not yet married, I would have hit him in the head with my purse twice," replied the woman. Lily laughed.

"Well, he's not my husband or even my boyfriend. I have no relationship with him really. It's complicated."

"Always is," the woman said, taking a properly cut bite of asparagus.

Lily stole a look at the name card on the table. Each seat had a golden card set above the plates on the table that noted the name of the seat's owner in crafted black script. The woman's read: Madam Amanda Weston, Director of Magical Transportation Division.

"You work in the Ministry?" asked Lily, nodding toward the card. The woman followed with her eyes and shook her head, chucking.

"Oh no. I don't work for the Ministry. I can't even imagine how terrible I'd be with directing the Floo Network or Apparation points. I'd probably destroy the entrance to Diagon Alley on my first day at work," the woman responded. She had soft brown hair that was currently in an elaborate arrangement on top of her head. She had laugh lines around her deep set, sophisticated eyes.

"Your name card's wrong?" Lily asked.

"No. My card's perfect, but it happens to be in front of the seat I'm supposed to sit in, the one at a table full of dull politicians," replied the woman, pointing to the table situated directly in front of the podium.

Not knowing how to respond politely, Lily recited a phrase she'd heard her father often say at his own dinner parties: "There's no more certain way to end polite conversation than to talk about religion or politics."

"Or You-Know-Who, these days," said Ms No-name, and though her voice was light, Lily wondered at the phrase she used, 'you know who.' Lily, for one, did not know who.

"And now we've breached two of three," Lily said. "Why not round it off. What are you beliefs concerning God?" The woman laughed and Lily smiled, glad she hadn't offended the woman.

"What a pair we make, ignoring our duties in this party in favor of laughter." The woman flattened the napkin in her lap.

"I have no duty here," said Lily, looking around at the gold and black Ball, at the people who looked so regal.

"What about to the family of whom you are a guest, Miss Evans?" asked the woman reading Lily's own name card, showing her as _Miss Lily Evans, Guest of Knowles Family Heir._ Lily sort of wanted to destroy that name card.

"I have no duties to them that I know of, except to escort my friend Christian to this Ball, and he is dancing with a friend--"

"The French Minister's daughter," interrupted the woman with amusement.

"He's dancing with the French Minister's daughter," Lily amended, motioning vaguely toward the dance floor and then at the woman in front of her, "and I am having a wonderful conversation with you."

The woman's amusement grew. "Polite, aren't you?"

"No, but I can sound that way for a moment or two. Then people bring up the age-old fight about the care of unicorns in preservations and I start screaming about bamboo and they quit finding me quite so polite," Lily replied with a flip of her hand.

The woman's smile, if possible grew at the thought of a ridiculous argument about bamboo and unicorns. "You've certainly charmed and amused me."

"Well, you haven't brought up unicorns have you?" Lily asked, eyes wide with fake earnest.

"Well, what are you opinions on unicorns?"

"Hate them," Lily said, shrugging.

"No one hates unicorns."

"And that's why I've decided to hate them. Unicorns need someone to cut back their egos," Lily said. The woman laughed and shook her head.

"Miss Lily Evans, I am Cordelia Crouch, and I'm letting you know that I find you perfectly amusing," Cordelia Crouch announced, smiling. Lily preened.

"Thank you." Lily smiled. "I love amusing people."

"You're welcome," she said. "I love being amused."

Lily reached out for her glass of water when I thought occurred to her. "You said your name is Crouch? That's sounds familiar."

"You might know of my husband, Bartemous Crouch," Mrs. Crouch replied. At Lily's shake of her head, she said, "Or my son, by that same name, at Hogwarts."

"That's it! Is he here?" Lily looked back at the table Mrs. Crouch said she was supposed to be at.

"No, I spare him the tedium of Balls, where his father works when he's not supposed to and I sneak away to speak with strangers," explained Mrs. Crouch. "Besides, only one generation of a family need ever come. Which is precisely why there are so few people your age in attendance."

"My mates were jealous of my invitation," Lily said, forgetting the glass of water in favor of picking up her fork and tapping it rhythmically against the table. "They considered this a great honor."

"And where are these mates of yours?" Mrs. Crouch asked, picking up the glass in front of her and taking a sip.

"At a party with nearly the whole school, shooting off fireworks, throwing steamers at one another, setting off poppers, and just generally having a great time." Lily stopped tapping the fork and set it down, bored with the activity and feeling terribly self-pitying.

"Exactly." Something in her tone made Lily wonder if this brown-haired, highly composed woman wanted to be at a party like Tracy's.

"I don't suppose your friends are at a party like that?" Lily asked.

"I don't have any friends." Lily laughed as the woman winked. "But my husband is at our assigned table."

Lily looked over once more at the table positioned in the middle of the room, obviously central to the Ball. Looking at them, taking in the expense of their robes, the importance of their table, the prestige of their positions, Lily decided that the way she was talking to Mrs. Crouch was contrary to all socially acceptable behaviors. This woman came from a different class, a higher class, but Lily couldn't bring herself to care. If she was willing to speak with her, Lily was not about to stop the one conversation that might salvage the night for her.

"Is he among the men with backs so stiff you'd think they're frozen?" Lily asked, noticing two fairies run into each other near the ceiling.

"You _are_ outspoken, aren't you?" laughed Mrs. Crouch.

"Only because we're, you know, best friends." The exaggeration received a laugh from Mrs. Crouch, who knew that they were strangers, knew they would probably never speak again, were not supposed to be speaking even now.

"Best friends?"

"Oh, yes," Lily said, sipping her own water. "You're even invited to my next sleep-over."

"Sleep over?" Mrs. Crouch folded her hands on the table in front of her.

"Probably a Muggle thing." Lily set down the water and shrugged, loving the feel of the soft shawl on her shoulders.

"No. A child thing."

"As we have already established, I'm only seventeen and you want to be seventeen, so a sleepover is appropriate. Besides, as best friends, we'll make it work." The woman laughed and Lily sat up straighter. This was her forte: she could control a room and the people in it if she tried. Their laughter fuelled her, gave her energy, pushed her forward. She knew how to entertain people within a moment of their introduction.

She knew, for instance, that the man who sat beside Mrs. Crouch at the beginning of the evening would laugh with Mrs. Crouch but never with Lily. He looked too condescendingly at her when she spoke, while Mrs. Crouch's laughter grew each time Lily spoke. Lily loved it, the attention, the giggles, the appreciation of her own dry sense of humor. It was a relief from the oppressive party atmosphere-- one she willingly accepted.

"How many Balls have you attended?" Lily asked, changing gears.

"Too many."

"Are they always like this?"

"Boring?" Mrs. Crouch asked, laughing. "Yes, but the food is delicious, the decorations breathtaking, and the prestige unequalled."

"So long as the food is good." Lily replied, smirking as she remembered the way she built small castles out of the food in the prefect meetings. 

 

 

 

 

**~*~*~**

A large portion of the guests had not arrived even by the time Christian managed to drag Lily away from Mrs. Crouch and toward the dance floor on the opposite side of the room. Not that Mrs. Crouch minded. She rose and moved back to her own table, sighting Lily as the only reason she stayed there as long as she had.

"Why are people making such a fuss over arriving fashionably late?" Lily asked Christian as he continued pulling her by the hand.

"What do you mean?"

"It's nearly nine already, people are finishing dinner, and still many seats are unoccupied. In fact, no one has arrive in nearly an hour," Lily said, looking shrewdly at the half-full tables.

"You're right," said Christian as they arrived on the dance floor. "It is strange."

But as the music floated (tangibly in the form of golden notes) over their heads and dancing couples pulled them into the rhythm of the floor, it was hard to care about the missing guests. Instead, even though Lily reminded herself that she did not want to lead Christian on, she let him place one hand on her back and wrap the other around her hand.

Christian danced as he lived: with a stiff formality and perfectly placed movements. He took Lily through the motions of songs and dances she should have found romantic. Instead, she could only think of a party in the McGrath house and how much fun that might have been.

 

 

 

**~*~*~**

When the dancing began to make her feet and heart ache, Lily politely asked if they could return to their table. Christian nodded and led her back through the crowds of people. Even after the hour they had spent dancing-- it was nearing ten at night-- the final guests were nowhere to be seen. Just as she made note of this to Christian, a couple appeared on the apparation site and made Lily look terribly silly in Christian's eyes. "Never mind."

"Here we are," Christian said, pointing to their table. "If you don't mind, I'd like to speak with a friend of mine at table thirty."

"Would you like me to come with you?" Lily asked.

"No. It's work related." _What work?_ Lily wondered, but said nothing as Christian walked away. She would have taken her seat and sat dreaming of Tracy's party until his return if she had not let her eyes wander of the room and spotted Mrs. Crouch looking terribly bored as she spoke to an elderly man. She picked up her purse and walked right over, but once there, she stood awkwardly behind the man (in plain view of Mrs. Crouch), wondering if she ought to interrupt. Mrs. Crouch decided for her.

"Hello Lily," she greeted her, a look of relief covering her face. The man turned and looked at Lily with a mixture of amusement and disdain. "Charles, this is Miss Lily Evans. She attends Hogwarts with my son."

"Charmed," said Charles, inclining his head toward her. Lily assumed, from the lack of introduction, that she ought to know who he was. She didn't. Before she had the opportunity to ask, though, the sudden appearance of a dozen men in white masks and black robes distracted her.

 

**~*~*~**

A flurry of colors lit the room-- red and black and yellow spells shot out from all around Lily, aimed for the men in black who sent their own spells back.

Men and women ran, screaming as they rushed to claim Portkeys, disappearing too quickly to take many with them. A woman lost her shoe in front of Lily, who irrationally tried to grab it to return to her but a burning hex hit the back of her hand.

As the attackers continued casting spells, the robed men walked between tables, herding the guests into the corners, people falling before them, scratches and cuts breaking out across arms and faces.

It was like an army descending. Terror filled Lily; she couldn't even scream. All she could do was work on instincts built in the safety of the Game she and her friends played: she grabbed her wand and cast a Shield Charm. She pushed Mrs. Crouch with her free hand towards her table.

Her shield caught the attention of the spell casters, who turned with horrifying stnchronicity, and Lily was quickly assaulted with curses and hexes. They banged against her shield, and she poured more stubborn power into it, but on the third spell, her shield broke. The fourth sent her flying backward, into a table-- cracking it in two.

Pain erupted in the back of her head, left leg, and shoulder; she felt as though she had been stabbed and couldn't breathe even as she felt a pull behind her navel. Black inched into her vision. She was floating, airless and breathless as the pain in her body overwhelmed her senses. She was not even aware of the moment when the ground appeared beneath her once more. Lily tried to see what was happening, tried to stop the tears on her face from flowing, tried to ignore the pain, tried to breathe without feeling sharp pains in her chest.

Popping sounds echoed around the area as people arrived. Someone grabbed Lily's arm. Crying out in pain and scrambling to escape, Lily tried to crawl away. Her useless left arm and throbbing leg halted her movement. She couldn't breathe. Couldn't make a sound. Her chest. Her chest hurt so much.

"This girl needs attention!" yelled a man above Lily, trying to make her stand.

"Don't touch me. Don't touch me," Lily chanted quietly, unable to make a louder sound, terrified and scared and-- it hurt. She hurt.

"She's in shock," said a voice beside that one. A spell was muttered and Lily found herself floating again. Lights flashed as blood seeped out of Lily. Then there was only darkness.


	11. Survivors

Even days after the attack, the hospital bustled. Healers rushed up and down the corridors as photographers and reporters vied for interviews with the guests from the Ball. Not that Lily interacted with any of these people; no, she remained in her sickbed as trained Aurors wasted time standing outside her door "protecting" her. It wasn't as if she was anyone important or anyone likely to be attacked, they just liked putting on a big show of protecting the victims of the Ball. Lily suspected that if the Ball had invited regular guests this would not be the case, but as only the most prominent and important people in society attended the Ball, it made sense. Too bad Lily was neither prominent nor important.

After the attack, Lily's parents had been escorted to the hospital as quickly as possible and remained there for days. It was a big deal -- they were apparently the first Muggles to gain access to the building in years -- a triumph for the Muggle Rights Act. Not that Lily cared about that at the time. All she cared about was the fact when she woke up with a splitting headache, terrified and unable to scream out her terror, mother had been there. The room had been sterile-smelling, completely foreign, and dimly lit. With the memories of hexes and curses flying around in Lily's head, she could not express her gratitude for her mother's comforting hand. Her parents calmed her down, let her know she was safe, hugged her too tightly, and cried as they told her a man was coming who could explain everything to her.

So now Lily sat staring at the Aurors stationed at her door while the Ministry Official spoke to her like she was a child.

"When you arrived by Portkey you landed in a place called the Crystal Ball. It was a pretty room, wasn't it? You weren't supposed to be there, really. You were a guest of an important family. I want you to tell me what happened between that moment and when you left." The man stopped speaking as abruptly as he began, creating a very awkward pause.

"Starting when?" Lily asked, still not looking at the man, only wishing that he would leave and deciding that the fastest way to rid herself of him would be to answer his questions.

"The moment you arrived." Awkward abrupt pause again. Why was _he_ the Ministry's interviewer?

"Well," Lily began, trying to remember the events even as she tried to keep from reliving the end, "we were greeted by the hostess and shown to--"

"Do you remember the name of the hostess?" interrupted the balding man.

"No."

"Was it Marissa?"

"I don't remember," repeated Lily, irked that he wouldn't listen.

"Was it Clara?"

"I really don't remember." And honestly, at that point, if Lily _had_ remembered she certainly wouldn't have told this man.

"All right," he said, making notes on his parchment. "What happened next?"

"Christian and I sat at the table, we drank some water, and I met Mrs. Crouch--"

"Cordelia Crouch?" asked the man in an urgent tone-- so urgent that Lily looked over at him and decided not to be bothered by his second interruption. Beads of sweat were dripping down the side of his face. He was so very, very gross.

"Yes, Cordelia Crouch."

"You remember her name and yet you don't remember the name of the hostess?" asked the man, taking frantic notes as though Lily had given away some large secret.

"Well, the hostess only showed me to my table. I spoke with Mrs. Crouch at length."

"You did?" The quill stopped moving as his disproportionately large eyes looked up at Lily.

"Yes."

"You spoke at length with Cordelia Crouch?" The incredulity in his voice would have driven Lily batty if she weren't trying so hard to keep calm for her parents, who were politely sitting on the other side of the bed listening. They did not really understand anything about the hospital or the Ministry of Magic, and Lily did not want them to think badly of either one.

"Yes, why?" Lily asked. A pang of fear ripped through Lily. "Did something happen to her?"

No. She refused to accept that. Mrs. Crouch was fine. Excellent. Pristine. Fine.

Lily had seen her take the Portkey, hadn't she? Had Mrs. Crouch been hit by a spell beforehand? Had Lily not noticed? No. No. Nothing had happened to Mrs. Crouch. Nothing had happened to Mrs. Crouch. And then a thought struck.

"What about Christian?" Lily asked. "Is he all right?"

"I can't discuss a pending investigation with you," the man replied, sitting up and straightening his parchment, his eyes avoiding hers.

"What pending investigation? I only want to know how they are," Lily snapped at him.

"They were at the Ball," he said condescendingly.

"I know that. I was there too. What does that have to do with anything? How are they?" Lily asked, urgency evident in her voice though she tried to hide it.

"I can't discuss a pending--"

"I heard you the first time," Lily snapped, cutting him off. "I only want to know what happened to them!"

"Is this because you allege to know these people?"

"Allege?" asked Lily, moving to stand up. Lily's mother and father, who both sat beside Lily on the side of the bed opposite the Ministry Official, tried to stop her movement, but she shrugged them off and sat up straighter, only to have a sharp pain rip through her chest. She cried out in pain and sank back into the bed.

"Lily?" her mother exclaimed. "Are you all right?"

Shaking her head as she clasped her hands over her ribs, Lily closed her eyes, gasping. A Healer rushed over, pushed Lily's parents aside and executed several spells. Each one lessened both Lily's pain and her awareness. After a few moments breathing regularly -- her mother's hand gripping hers, her father pouring her a glass of water -- the Ministry Official spoke up.

"Are you calm enough to continue the questioning?" the irritating man asked.

"Are you ready to tell me what happened to Mrs. Crouch and Christian?" Lily replied, mimicking his tone as much as possible between deep breaths and stabs of pain. She hated him. Loathed.

"I told you that I cannot discuss a pending investigation."

"Then I cannot continue to discuss this with you," Lily replied, beyond the point of caring about manners.

"We can skip to the end of the questions," the man said, as though arranging a large compromise, "if you tell me who hurt you so badly."

 _They were wearing masks, you idiot_ , Lily thought, glaring at him.

"They couldn't have hurt her too badly," Mr. Evans said. "She hadn't a bruise on her body when we saw her, only hours after the incident."

"You're a Muggle," the Ministry Official said, shaking his head at Mr. Evans. Lily wanted to hex him. "You don't understand--"

"I understand enough to know that my daughter only wants to know the condition of her friends and that you refuse to tell her how they are," retorted Mrs. Evans.

"I must follow protocol," the man replied, irritation growing in his voice, which only served to irritate Lily.

"Protocol?" Lily said. Why wouldn't he just tell her if they were hurt? No. No. They were perfectly healthy. She blinked back tears.

"Yes," he said. "I cannot discuss these matters with a potential accomplice."

"Accomplice!" shrieked Mrs. Evans. "Are you mad? My daughter is seventeen years old!"

This man thought she was one of the hooded figures? The Ministry thought she could have caused this trouble, hurt all those people? Faked the pain in her stomach and chest that were beginning to ache again? What was going on? Why was the room spinning? Why couldn't she hear anything? Was Christian all right?

During her panic attack, Lily didn’t see the same Healer running up to her and hitting her with a Calming Charm. Nor did she register the Sleeping Draught that she was forced to drink.

  

 

**~*~*~**

When Lily next opened her eyes, her parents were not by her side. Even the Ministry Official was absent from her room. In their place was a woman in dark blue tailored robes with impeccable posture. The room was only dimly lit, but as Lily sat up in her bed, torches in four spots around the room flickered to life and that same damn pain in her chest caused Lily to gasp.

"Should I call a Healer, Miss Evans?" asked the woman. Lily pulled the sheets to her neck as she leaned against the headboard and the pain in her chest lessened a touch.

"Who are you? Where are my parents?" Lily felt dazed after the affects of the Sleeping Draught and the pain that no Healer came to alleviate.

"My name is Diana Brooks, and I am Head of the Auror Department in the Ministry of Magic."

Lily sat up higher, gasping slightly at the pain, and the woman pulled her chair closer.

"Where are my parents?" Lily asked, refusing to let this woman avoid her question.

"They're sleeping in the room adjacent to this one."

"Where?"

"One room over to the left," replied Ms Brooks, pointing. Lily's eyes followed the finger and saw only the wall. Of course. Lily felt slightly stupid.

"Why aren't they here?" Lily asked, her tone was quieter, less accusatory.

"Because they needed their rest as much as you needed yours."

"Why didn't they sleep in here?" Lily asked, noticing an empty bed in her room.

"Your parents -- especially your father -- were very suspicious of the potion the Healer gave you. They grew more worried when they could not wake you, and they called out to the Aurors at the doors that the man drugged you. The Aurors immediately took the Official into custody. When the entire story was discovered, it was decided that we would give your parents some of the Draught, as they were obviously suffering from lack of sleep after the days they spent by your side."

"And it was decided that they needed to be in a different room?" Lily asked, suspicious.

"It was assumed that they would be more comfortable in individual beds."

"And why are you here?" Lily asked, unnerved by this uninvited guest, bothered that her parents weren't beside her, and tired of her ribs hurting each time she took a breath.

"I'm investigating what happened at the Crystal Ball." The memory of the previous investigating Ministry Official was not a pleasant one. Lily did not want a repeat of that experience.

"I've already spoken to a man about it," Lily said stiffly.

"Yes, and that man is an imbecile, sent by a politician to give your story the right spin," the woman said as she leaned back in her chair. Barely digesting that information, Lily looked at the clock on the bedside table and saw the time to be eight-thirty, presumably in the morning.

"If he already has his spin, why did they send you?"

"They didn't. I came because two Aurors died that night, and I want to know what happened."

"Died?" Lily asked, shocked.

"Yes," she replied. "And I need to know what you saw in order to construct the most accurate account of the night." She took a moment to measure Lily's physical health, but Lily didn’t notice. Instead, she saw spells hurtling toward her, about to send her into a table. She shuddered.

"I didn't know anyone died," Lily said.

"It's classified information, another reason your parents are resting in a different room."

"But if people were killed, people ought to know."

"The families know. For now, that has to be enough," said the woman. Her tone reminded Lily of Professor McGonagall during prefect meetings.

"But that means that army was dangerous. People need to--"

"I don't disagree with you, Miss Evans, but the Minister of Magic does," explained the woman. Then her eyes locked on Lily's and without changing her tone, she said, "I want to know what you remember about what happened."

"Will you tell me what happened to Cordelia Crouch and Christian Knowles?" Lily pressed.

"They are both relatively healthy. Mrs. Crouch suffered a broken ankle. Mr. Knowles had minor bruises and cuts."

Lily sagged in relief, slumping against her pillows.

"Good," she muttered, wiping away her tears. "But are you sure you're thinking of the right people? How do you know what happened to them?"

"You're one of the last to wake. All of the others asked similar questions about their loved ones. I know about most of the injuries incurred at the Ball," she replied.

"The Ministry Official refused to tell me what happened to them," Lily said, composing herself. "He said he wasn’t allowed to talk about pending investigations and that I might be an accomplice."

"The man you spoke with has no official tie to the investigation. He was never given a list of suspects. You were not and never have been under the investigation of the Auror Department, Miss Evans," the woman replied. Her brusque voice assured Lily as much as her words.

"All right," said Lily, wiping away the last of her tears and then locking eyes with the Auror Director. "Where do you want me to begin?"

"For the record," Ms. Brooks began, setting a piece of parchment and quill at the foot of Lily's bed, "please state your name and age."

"Lily Evans. Seventeen." The quill moved on its own, scratching across the parchment. The Director looked over the parchment, nodded and turned back to Lily.

"How did you prepare for the evening?" asked Ms. Brooks.

"I went to my friend Tracy's house," began Lily. The quill moved in time with her words.

"What is her surname?" prompted Diana Brooks, eyeing the parchment before looking back at Lily.

"McGrath. She lives a few minutes from me, and was holding a party that night."

"Thank you. Please continue."

And so Lily recalled what she could of her New Year's Eve. She talked about Tracy's party and then walking home with Sam. She recounted waiting for Christian and learning about cars that drove themselves. She even remembered to complain about the cushioning charms in her shoes.

"After the car ride, Christian and I left the car and were in the middle of a creepy, dark alley. For a moment I thought he was insane, wanting to take me into that, but then the car drove itself off and I didn't want to be left alone, so I followed him. Then that freaky host showed up and terrified me." Lily paused, trying to remember the correct sequence of events.

"What do you mean 'freaky'?" asked the Director. Lily tried to remember but couldn't quite articulate what she saw.

"He appeared out of nowhere, which scared me and my basic Muggle common sense. Plus, he had the strangest eyes I've ever seen. They were glazed, like he couldn't see anything. He blinked into and out of focus. It was like he was looking through me sometimes." Ms Brooks nodded and motioned for Lily to continue.

"On reflex I drew my wand on him. Christian was horrified and wanted me to put it down, but there was something wrong with him," Lily said, trying to explain. She didn’t want this woman to think she was some sort of trigger-happy teen, wanting to curse anything and everything in sight.

"How did the man react to your threat?"

"He hardly reacted at all; he told me the Auror Director had drawn her wand faster. Oh! That was you, wasn't it?" Lily asked. When Diana Brooks shook her head, Lily looked questioningly at her.

"Marcia McCloud, my predecessor, died that night." Ms. Brook's tone never changed, but Lily felt her eyes watering again like a damned child.

"I'm so sorry."

"Please continue your story," said Ms. Brooks.

The rest of the story came quickly, leading up to the conversation with Mrs. Crouch.

"Cordelia Crouch?" the Director asked in a break in the story as Lily painfully reached to her nightstand to grab the glass of water on it.

"Yes," said Lily, her finger tips on the lip of the glass, tipping it.

"That's why you asked about her when you woke?" the Director asked, flicking her wand and levitating the water into Lily's outstretched hands. Careful not to spill, Lily nodded and took a sip.

"The Ministry Official kept asking about her. He didn't seem to believe that I spoke with her," Lily said, lowering the cup onto her lap.

"Many believe that Mrs. Crouch's husband will be the next Minister of Magic. I'm sure the Official doubted that the Crouches were seated at your table," the Director explained, but Lily understood that it was also a question and explained about Mrs. Crouch sitting with friends and then talking with Lily while Christian danced.

"If I ask her, Mrs. Crouch will corroborate your story?"

"Yes. And you're sure she's okay? I shoved her," Lily interjected, lifting the cup back up to her lips.

Once she finished with the cup, the Director floated it over to the nightstand and Lily began her story again. She spoke about dancing with Christian, noticing how few guests had arrived, and then making her way back over to Mrs. Crouch's table as Christian wandered away to do some work.

"Work? What work?"

"I don't know," Lily replied, shrugging her shoulders and almost doubling over in pain because of that simply action. "Christian and I broke up in August and we haven't kept in touch very well. I don't even remember if he mentioned the name of his friend."

"You broke up and yet he asked you to be his escort?"

"Yes."

"Were you friends?"

"No. Not particularly." Once more, the Director seemed thoughtful before motioning for Lily to continue. It bothered Lily. Why did the Director care if she and Christian were friends? Lily retold the story of the sudden arrival of the robed men, and for the first time in the long conversation, Director Diana Brooks interrupted.

"Death Eaters," she said.

"Excuse me?"

"The robed men, they call themselves Death Eaters."

"Well that’s appropriately horrible," replied Lily as she tried to understand the purpose of such a vicious title. "And they were cowards, wearing masks, not wanting to own up to their choices."

"Yes," agreed Brooks, "they are,"

It didn't take long for Lily to finish her story after that. She spoke of shoving Mrs. Crouch toward her table, casting the Shield Charm, being hit by a few curses that threw her back into a table, and then waking up in the hospital. She couldn't remember anything in between those two moments, no matter how hard she tried.

"When you were thrown against the table, you knocked into a group of wizards using one of the last Portkeys. Mr. Jones, the Director of Magical Justice, grabbed your wrist," explained Ms. Brooks. "Unfortunately, he grabbed you at the moment of departure. The resulting force cracked your wrist into three pieces."

"My wrist?" asked Lily, looking down at her wrists and not noticing any significant difference.

"Yes. Your injuries were extensive."

"But my father and mother said--"

"Your father and mother are Muggles, Miss Evans. If they looked at your school, they would see rubble. What makes you believe they could see all the ways you were hurt?" That silenced Lily and made her feel a pang in her heart as she felt yet another brick being added to the wall that separated her from her Muggle roots.

"How badly was I hurt?"

"You remember nothing of being brought here?"

"No. One moment I felt pain as I hit the table and the next thing I remember, my parents were beside me and I was in this bed hurting. I hurt so much and I felt like I was choking. I kept trying to say something, anything. I yelled for my wand, but I couldn't make a sound."

"You slept for three days as the Healers worked on you. This is your fourth day at St. Mungo's."

"Four days?"

"Your parents arrived on the first day, but Healers work first on the most obvious injuries, covering and healing them. All Muggle signs of trauma were hidden. But your injuries were extensive: you broke your left leg and fractured you left shoulder; your right elbow was shattered, what the Healers claimed was the result of blunt trauma; pieces of wood from the splintered table were lodged in your back; and three of your ribs had broken, one puncturing a lung. To ensure your safety as they worked on the internal bleeding and punctured lung, the Healers gave you massive doses of Sleeping Draught and Pain Relief Potion."

Lily looked at the woman sitting in front of her. Ms Diana Brooks was a fit woman, filled with muscles from running and an intense stare that scared Lily. How did she know all about Lily's injuries? How did she know things that even Lily didn't? Could Lily believe this woman, trust her to tell the truth to a girl she did not know?

"I had no idea," Lily said.

"You were asleep." But Lily shook her head, hating that she could not know her body well enough to know what had happened to her. She hated that she had not recognized the strange pains in her body as coming from broken bones and punctured insides.

"What happened at the Ball after I left?" Lily asked, determined to think about something else. Diana Brooks leaned back in her chair and gave Lily a shrewd look, asking with her eyes if Lily was strong enough to hear the truth. Lily squared her shoulders and met the woman's gaze.

"Most of the other witnesses woke before you and we have their accounts, but they still conflict in some areas," cautioned the Director. Lily nodded for the woman to continue.

"From what the other witnesses have said, four groups of Death Eaters herded guests into the corners of the room as a smaller band of them fought off any magical attacks the guests might have thrown. That coincided with the casting of your Shield Charm. Yours was the brightest of the Shields; it attracted the attention of that group. You were attacked and eventually hit by a hex that threw you into a table. Mr. Jones grabbed you and you left. Moments before that, the Aurors stationed at the Ball had evacuated all important personnel, including Mr. Crouch and his wife."

"Good," Lily said, sighing. "Then what happened?"

"This is where the stories diverge. Many escaped by Portkey, but two-dozen guests remained locked in the room. In some cases it was because they sent their family ahead, but in the case of the Prewetts, it was because their Portkey had not recharged yet."

"They must have been the people I saw arrive as we left the dance floor," Lily said, thinking aloud.

"They arrived late and were the apparent targets of the attack. When You-Know-Who arrived--"

"Who?"

"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."

"Who? What? I don't know who you're talking about," Lily said, annoyed. Once more Director Brooks' intense stare focused on Lily and after a moment's staring contest, she slightly inclined her head.

"I meant Voldemort," said Ms. Brooks. "Most of the witnesses have preferred that his name not be mentioned."

"That's stupid," Lily murmured, wondering why they wouldn't want to know the name of their attacker. Lily certainly wanted to know how attacked her. Plus, it was confusing to say you know who and expect other people know what you were talking about. Pronouns were confusing.

"When he arrived, his Death Eaters--"

" _His_ Death Eaters?" Lily repeated, shaking her head. "I don't understand."

"The robed men you saw arrive are followers of Voldemort."

"I didn't know he had followers. Is it like a cult or something?"

"That would be a very good description."

"So all of those robed men, those Death Eaters, they hate Muggle-borns as well?"

"Yes."

"All right. Neat," Lily said. Sure, why not? "Please continue."

"By the time Voldemort arrived, the Death Eaters had already detained the Prewetts. He spoke to them, though no one heard what they said. Then he killed them. Witnesses say Mr. and Mrs. Prewett sat proudly at their table, even as the green light came." The woman's powerful voice caught for a moment, but then she continued. "Luckily, there was a wizard in the room who knew how to disable the wards from within. As Voldemort spoke with the Prewetts, that man asked the other guests to block him from their view. When he disabled the wards, the Aurors came and Voldemort and his followers fled."

"They fled?" exclaimed Lily, her sense of right and wrong flaring up alongside the pain in her chest. "You didn't catch them? You didn't punish them?"

"They were gone by the time we arrived," explained Ms Brooks.

"Couldn't you have traced them, followed them?" Lily asked, her sense of right and wrong horribly upset. This wasn't how things were supposed to happen. The bad side was supposed to lose, be caught and punished. They weren't supposed to escape.

"We tried and were unsuccessful." Now Ms. Brooks' tone irritated Lily. Why was her intensity focused on Lily, why not on men who hurt her and the Prewetts? Why wasn't she doing something instead of lounging about a hospital?

When the door opened, Lily instinctively reached out for her wand on her bedside table, but could not find it. She looked for it briefly, not able to remember a time in the last five years when her wand was not in sight. The man that opened the door was an Auror, announcing the end of his shift. Ms. Brooks nodded to him as Lily continued her search.

"What are you looking for?"

"My wand," Lily replied, distracted for the moment as she leaned forward in order to lift and look under her pillow. The twisting hurt so much that she stopped the effort.

"It was broken at the Ball."

"What?" whispered Lily, turning to face the woman.

"We found it on the floor and took the pieces to Ollivander's hoping for a match with one of the Death Eaters. He identified it as yours. Then we burned it."

"Burned?"

"Standard procedure."

"Standard procedure? You burned my wand!" Lily yelled. Why she cared so much about her wand, why the thought of it broken formed a lump in her throat, why she had to blink to keep back the tears was lost on Lily. It didn't make any sense! When she heard the news of the deaths at the Ball, all she felt was surprise, but when she thought about her wand— her precious wand— broken, it hurt. 

 

 

**~*~*~**

"Would you like an ice cream cone before we buy your wand?" Mrs. Evans asked Lily as the pair passed Florean Fortesque's.

"No, thank you," Lily replied. Faith watched her shove her hands in her pockets and lower her head.

The Healers had decided to keep Lily for over a week under their hawk-eyed inspection. Mrs. Evans suspected that the week wouldn't have passed so badly, had Lily been able to receive owls. But as one of the other injured from the "Shattered Crystal Ball," had received a hexed letter, all mail had been stopped.

As there had been over two hundred people at the Ball and only ten had remained in hospital as long as Lily, Faith thought it was a bit of an over precaution.

"Do you want some new dress robes?" Faith Evans tried enticing her daughter when she caught sight of the brightly decorated robe shop.

"Maybe later," murmured Lily.

Faith Evans did not understand her daughter. Normally, Lily would have jumped at the opportunity to buy new clothes, eat sweets, and have her mother pick up the tab. But today she was withdrawn, angry. She understood that her daughter hadn’t wanted to stay in the hospital as long as she had; to tell the truth, Faith would have preferred her youngest daughter go back to school on time, rather than three days late, but they were the Healers, not she, and so she had acquiesced to their requests.

It hadn't been that horrible, right? Lily hadn't had a mark on her. There was no internal bleeding or casts or needles that needed to be injected. That was the miracle of magic. Faith wished her daughter could comprehend that gift.

Pushing the door open to the dark old store, Faith had to keep herself from glancing around in wonder at the dust in the room. Why didn't magic ever help with the daily cleaning needs of people?

"Hello, Lily Evans."

Faith jumped.

"You scared me!" snapped Faith at the silver-haired, too-big eyed man who had appeared out of nowhere. She vaguely remembered him from their first trek into his store five years earlier, but at that time the store had been filled with four children and their families. The man had been racing between the students.

"Hello, Mr. Ollivander," said Lily, almost smiling. "I need a new wand."

"Yes. You do. I saw what happened to the old one. Very sad business, to see a broken wand," he said in hollow tones.

"Yes," replied Lily, trying to fend off a bout of sadness. Faith wished the man wouldn’t encourage her daughter’s melodrama about a stick of wood. While Lily stood under the protection and care of her mother's hand, Mr. Ollivander blinked his large eyes at Lily and nodded, as if approving her feelings. Then he slipped into the back of the store and returned with an armful of boxes.

"Let's begin, shall we?"

And so they stood together, these three unlikely people: a Muggle mother trying to Support her daughter; a man selling children a tool to bend magic to their wills; and a teenager torn between those worlds. They stood and Lily took wand after wand into her hand until, at last, the familiar tingling raced up her arm and a blue bubble appeared out of the end of the wand.

"Ten inches, oak wood, Dragon's heartstring core," Mr. Ollivander recited. Lily nodded, pretending like that information was important, but really it meant nothing. "Extremely good for charms and hexes."

"Hexes?" sputtered both Lily and her mother.

"Yes."

"I don't think this is the right wand for me," said Lily, putting the wand on the register desk, shaking her head at it.

"Well, it's the wand that chooses the witch, not the other way around," replied Mr. Ollivander, walking behind the counter and beginning to wrap up the wand.

"You don't understand," pleaded Lily. "I'm no good at hexes. That wand isn't for me. I'm more the defensive type."

"The wand thinks differently," said Mr. Ollivander, tying the bow on top of the box before looking expectedly at Mrs. Evans. Faith, for her part, couldn't decide whether she ought to agree with her daughter or the expert. Having a wand that was good at hexes seemed morally wrong and if her daughter didn't want it, why couldn't she have a different one? But if the shop owner said the wand had to choose her...

"The wand is wrong. I got a Troll on my Defense O.W.L. That isn't supposed to even be possible," babbled Lily. She looked wildly around at the shop owner and then her mother, imploring both to understand. Lily didn’t know why the idea of owning a wand good at hexes terrified her so much; she only knew that she would never use that wand. "Let me pick a new one."

"You can't. Once a wand has picked you, no other wand will," explained Mr. Ollivander.

"If that's the case, Lily, we ought to buy this one. You don't have to hex anyone if you don't want," Mrs. Evans said, opening her purse.

"No! There are other wand stores. Let's shop around a bit."

"There are no other wand shops in England," replied Mr. Ollivander. Lily's shoulders slumped and her head drooped.

"Can't I have a wand that isn't perfectly suited for me?"

"A wizard will never have the same results with another wizard's wand."

"Then we will take this one. I won't have you sacrifice your studies for a wand preference," said Mrs. Evans. Lily struggled to think of another excuse. Maybe she could just start crying. That would surprise both of them and maybe then they would not make her take this stupid wand, this stupid dangerous wand that obviously did not know her at all. Mrs. Evans walked forward and placed an arm around her daughter's shoulders, giving her a half-hug before nodding at Mr. Ollivander and paying the price that he asked.

Lily, glaring at the package the whole while, grabbed it angrily off the counter and shoved it in her purse. Fine. Fine. If Ollivander insisted that she take this wand that was just fine. Lily would simply never cast any hexes. Ever.


	12. Going Home Again

Whispers raced around the Great Hall when Lily appeared in the doorway beside Headmaster Dumbledore.

The headmaster had come down to the train station to personally escort her back to the Castle, citing moral support. Lily had insisted it wasn't necessary, but now that she stood awkwardly in the Great Hall with people gawking at the-girl-who-arrived-late, Lily understood the real reason Dumbledore had come: to keep her from turning around and heading straight back to the train station.

But Dumbledore needn't have worried about Lily fleeing, much as she wished she could. Instead, being both strong in character and stubborn to the point of sickness, she remained in place just long enough for everyone to see her. Then she smiled, said a polite thank you to the headmaster, and walked over to the Gryffindor table. At least she tried to walk to her table. Before she reached her destination, however, Tracy, Christine, and Sam came rushing over

"I'm so glad you're okay!” Tracy latched onto her in a hug near the Hufflepuff table. Lily winced and tried to hide it. Hugging hurt her ribs.

"Yes. Very glad," said Christine as she wedged her arm between them to envelop Lily. That hurt too, but it felt so good to see her friends that she didn't care.

Sam stood slightly behind them, looking at Lily with large, scared brown eyes. Never one to like being the center of attention, hugging her friend in the middle of the Great Hall terrified Sam and it meant a lot to Lily that she had attempted it. Or it would have meant a lot to Lily if she hadn't been so annoyed with being the focus of every student's gaze.

The friends walked over to the Gryffindor table together-- Tracy and Christine talking and Sam silent-- where Lily sat between Sam and Tracy as Christine sat across from them.

"Why's everyone looking at me?" Lily asked, glancing around the hall.

Tracy grabbed her hand, and Lily barely stopped a flinch. "They're just curious about why you came to school late." 

"They don't know?" Lily narrowed her eyes at a Hufflepuff pointing at her.

"They probably do. It's Hogwarts," said Tracy, squashing Lily's hopes that she could avoid becoming a part of the Hogwarts Rumor Mill. "Rumors move faster than snitches here."

"That sucks," Lily said, propping her elbows on the table and rubbing her temples.

"No it doesn't. You're famous," Christine said, buttering her roll.

"I'm not famous." Lily lifted her eyes to Christine, whose blond hair cascaded down her back. "I'm not even noteworthy."

"Sure you are. You were there. I heard that you might have even seen Voldemort, though I didn't believe the bit about you dueling with him."

Lily gaped at her, wondering what sort of rumors she had actually heard. "How in the world could you even consider that?"

"Wouldn't that be cool, though, for you to had dueled and beaten the Dark Lord?"

 _No!_ Lily wanted to shout, wanted to scream. But instead she tuned her friend out and clenched her shaking fingers, trying to forget the haunted look in Director Brooks' eyes when she spoke of her predecessor and Mr. Prewett. Trying not to dwell on things she could not change, Lily turned her mind to how good she felt to be at Hogwarts again. And it did feel good, didn't it?

At the end of dinner, Headmaster Dumbledore came over and politely coughed to gain Lily's attention.

"Oh!" Lily said, spinning in her seat to look at Dumbledore, wincing slightly as her chest ached.

"Miss Evans." Dumbledore inclined his head briefly at the rest of the students at the table. "Would you please come with me?"

"Of course.” Lily glanced at her still-full plate and the unappetizing platters of food before smiling at her friends and standing to join Dumbledore, who waved for her to lead. Once outside the Great Hall, Lily let out a breath that she was not aware she had been holding.

"It will become easier," Dumbledore said quietly. Lily looked over and caught his blue eyes staring unwaveringly as he led her through the corridors. "Every meal, every day, it will become a little easier."

Lily didn’t know why she had to blink back tears as she nodded. She didn’t know why her throat tightened. All she knew was that she hated feeling this weak. She hated that people noticed when she entered a room and surely noticed when she left. She hated that it had been difficult to sit with her friends and hear about stupid rumors and stare at food she couldn’t bring herself to eat.

"Where are we going, sir?" Lily asked, changing the subject and looking back down the corridor.

"The Healers from St. Mungo's have given very specific instructions to Madam Pomfrey regarding your care. She wishes to discuss the details with you. She's very fond of detail discussion." Dumbledore smiled a little, as if enjoying a private joke.

"All right," replied Lily. That made sense. That was normal.

A few more corridors traversed, a few staircases climbed, before the Infirmary came into sight.

"Sir, does everyone know about the Ball?" Lily asked, noticing the way the pictures eyed her as they passed.

"There has been no announcement, but the staff have been informed of the reason for your late arrival," Dumbledore replied.

"Oh. Okay."

In truth, Lily would have preferred for no one to know what happened: not the professors, not the students, not even Dumbledore. It wasn't like anything had really happened to her. Lily hadn't been there when Voldemort attacked the Prewetts. Hell, she hadn't even been there when Voldemort arrived. She didn't want people to think that she had experienced something that she hadn't. She didn't want people to look at her differently.

But if all the people treated her like Professor Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey did once she was in the Infirmary, Lily thought it wouldn't be that bad. Both acted as if nothing had changed. Neither mentioned the Ball nor even alluded to it. They treated Lily exactly as they had before the hols, except for the fact that Pomfrey insisted that Lily come up to her office to take a potion every night for a month.

"It's to help with the pain in your chest, though the _Prophet_ claims no one suffered any real injuries. As if a punctured lung, shattered elbow, broken wrist, and cracked rib weren't _real_ ," explained the matron, clucking her tongue as if that demonstrated the uselessness of Ministry Officials and newspaper reports. "You'll feel some short, sharp pains if you overexert yourself, but report to me if the pain remains longer than a moment or has no obvious cause."

"I will. Thank you," Lily replied, nodding and drinking the potion.

"If that is all, you may return to your dormitory, Miss Evans," Dumbledore said. Madam Pomfrey nodded curtly, as though approving the headmaster's words. It was interesting for Lily to see Dumbledore defer some decisions to the resident Healer. Lily watched the little woman scuttle back to the far side of the Hospital Wing and open a door to a room. In that brief moment between open and shut, Lily saw Remus Lupin standing in the shadows, but stood and walked out of the Wing before he could start wondering about her presence there.

 

**~*~*~**

In her dorm that night, Lily winced at the thought of the loads of revision she’d undoubtedly have to make up. She had missed four days of classes that were becoming increasingly difficult as the professors forced students to consider their seventh year projects more seriously and, at the same time, study for the practice N.E.W.T.s that were to take place at the end of this year. Missing four days just wasn't supposed to have happened.

Stupid Ball. Stupid Death Eaters. Stupid Voldemort.

"Lily," called a quiet voice from just next to Lily's bed. Lily drew back her curtains to find Sam crouched in the darkness. "Can we talk?"

"Sure," Lily replied, opening her curtain more and motioning for Sam to sit on the bed by her feet. Sam then soundproofed and closed the curtains before turning back to Lily.

"How are you?" Sam asked, the seriousness in her voice bothering Lily.

"I'm fine," Lily replied automatically, her manners beating the truth in the race to her mouth.

"You sure?"

"I--" Lily took a moment to relax against her pillow and close her eyes. _I'm frustrated and annoyed, to tell the truth, and I don't know why._ "I just wish everyone wouldn't make such a big deal out of what happened."

"It was a big deal." Sam placed a hand on Lily's and the redhead opened her eyes and rolled them.

"Well. Okay. It was a big deal in general, but nothing really happened to me specifically. I just happened to be there."

"Exactly," Sam said, shifting her legs around so that she sat on her heels and her feet brushed the curtains. "You were there."

"And that's supposed to be impressive?" Lily pulled her own feet up and hugged her knees.

"Not impressive, just intriguing. The press has said so little about what happened. We were frantic, trying to find information. The news of the attacks was the first thing we heard about waking up New Year's Day. Christine owled you, but the owl returned unopened. So we went over to your house just in time to see the Aurors escorting your parents out of the house and into black cars. No one would tell us anything."

Sam picked at the mattress and Lily stared at her dark-haired friend with remorse. She hadn't thought about what it must have been like for her friends, not knowing. She had been frantic to find information about Christian and Mrs. Crouch. She couldn't imagine what she would have done if it had been Tracy or Christine or Sam at the Ball.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that," Lily said, arms tightening around her legs.

"Don't be sorry. It wasn't your fault. It was You-Know-Who's."

"Voldemort," Lily supplied.

"Yes, You-Know-Who."

"Yes. I do know who. It was Voldemort."

"No. That's not what I meant. People are starting to call Voldemort You-Know-Who, because saying his name makes too many people angry and scared."

"That's stupid. It's just a name," scoffed Lily. Sam gave Lily a half smile and embraced her. Lily thought her friend might be crying so she rubbed Sam's back. "It's okay, Sam. I'm fine now."

"I told you to be careful," said Sam, breaking out of the embrace and wiping her tears with the ends of her sleeping gown. "And you went and got caught up in this."

Lily laughed. "Right. Sorry about that. Next time, I'll heed your words more carefully."

Sam didn't smile. "Next time? What do you mean next time?"

"I don't know," said Lily, shrugging as she leaned back and straightened her legs. "Nothing."

"Well, it sounded horrible. That will never happen again to you, if I have anything to say about it."

"And, fortunately," Lily said, "you organize Voldemort's day planner so he'll have to listen to you, is that it?"

"How can you talk about him so flippantly? How can you make jokes?" asked Sam, shaking her head and destroying the almost-happy atmosphere.

Lily wanted to tell Sam that taking him seriously was terrifying. She wanted to say that to not joke would make the situation worse. She wanted to explain, in careful tones, that if the Prewetts could die without quivering, without fear, and with dignity, then the least Lily could do was laugh at the man who wanted to steal laughter.

Instead, Lily claimed to be tired and avoided the question. Sam took the hint and left as silently as she came. Lily, meanwhile, tucked her hands under the pillow where she placed her head, and thought about how wonderful sleep would feel.

 

**~*~*~**

"Sorry I'm late, Professor," Lily mumbled as she ducked her head and hurried past Professor McGonagall and into her seat in Transfiguration. She expected a reprimand. Instead, when she looked up, it was to see Professor McGonagall nodding at her.

That's odd, Lily thought.

"What was that about?" Lily asked Tracy, who sat to her left. Tracy averted her gaze, shrugged and began taking notes.

Well, fine, if that was the way Tracy was going to act, Lily wouldn't care. She would turn right to the front of the class and pretend that nothing weird happened with McGonagall. Yep. Lily would sit there and take notes and care about the intricacies of transforming a book into a dog. Any minute now she would start scratching away with her quill instead of staring uselessly at the paper in front of her.

But, of course, Lily was lying to herself.

As the class dragged on (and on and on), Lily didn’t take a single note. She felt bored and uncomfortable and listless. She itxhed to leave, to do something, to be outside and away from that classroom. It definitely wasn't conducive to studying or note taking. If she had spent some time analyzing her feelings she might have discovered the reason, but she had no desire to undergo such introspection.

During the practical part of the lesson, Lily didn’t even attempt the spell; she was still wary of the wand lying on her desk — the wand she refused to call her own. And when Professor McGonagall began discussing the up-coming assignment, Lily thought back on the class and realized that she remembered none of it. What had she done for the last hour and a half?

"Miss Evans, please wait a moment," came the voice of Professor McGonagall, dragging Lily out of her thoughts and slamming her back into reality. Lily wanted to groan; how she dreaded another lecture from McGonagall about setting an example, about how her rank as prefect affected others.

"We'll wait for you outside," Sam told Lily as she packed her things.

"Don't worry about it," Lily replied, putting her blank parchment and unused quill into her bag. "You all have Defense next and I have a break. I'll find you at lunch."

"You sure?" Tracy pressed.

"Yes," replied Lily, an irrational stab of irritation snapping up in response to the look that Tracy was directing at her - the mix of pity and concern. There was nothing to be concerned about.

"It would be easy to wait. Are you sure--"

"She's sure. We're late. Let's go," interrupted Christine, walking up behind Tracy and pushing her right past Lily and out the door. Lily smiled at the retreating back of her friend, not for the first time grateful that Christine was her friend.

"I'll see you at lunch?" asked Sam, the only other student in the room. Lily looked over and nodded, so Sam left, shutting the door behind her.

In her absence, the size of the room seemed to shrink and pull Lily closer to McGonagall. For some reason, that put Lily on edge.

Once she finished organizing everything in her bag, Lily shouldered it and moved to the front of the room and toward the Transfiguration professor's desk. She kept her eyes darting around the room as long as she could before finally looking up to meet her professor's eyes. When she did so, she did not see what she expected: in place of anger and reproach there was... Lily didn't know, but McGonagall's expression did not seem right. In fact, the normally cool woman looked as if she were uncomfortable.

"Miss Evans," she began, standing and holding her hands together, "as your Head of House, I wanted to open a line of communication between us. If ever you want to discuss certain events, I will listen."

It was almost like someone had poured a batch of Shrinking Potion over Lily's head, such was her complete shock. How in the world was Lily supposed to respond to this out-of-the-blue 'line of communication'? The Gryffindor Head of House was attempting to reach out and comfort Lily, but it was obvious that neither woman was particularly comfortable with the situation. Lily did not want to create a friendship with her professor - honestly, what student would? - and McGonagall's invitation was awkward, though Lily could not exactly explain why.

"Thank you," Lily replied after too-long a pause.

Pause. "You're welcome." McGonagall picked up a stack of books. "And I will understand if you wish to transfer your patrol this evening."

"My patrol?"

"You and Mr. Lupin are scheduled to have a patrol tonight, but as I said, I would understand if you asked another student to substitute."

"No. Thank you for the offer, but I'll work the patrol," replied Lily.

Though it was tempting to take advantage of the sympathy of her professor, Lily knew that except for the occasional minor pain in her chest, she was neither ill nor hurt. Thus, if she skived off the patrol, she would be wracked with guilt. Yes, the patrols were long, silent, and boring, but they were her long, silent, and boring responsibility. 

 

**~*~*~**

Lily received two more invitations to "talk": one from Professor Flitwick who stopped her in the corridor and another from Hagrid, who she had seen when she walked around the Lake before lunch. Both times, as with Professor McGonagall, Lily did not know how to respond. Was she supposed to be flattered? Excited or relieved? All she felt was a vague sense of unease from the professors and a growing irritation inside herself. Why did they all think that she needed to talk about the Ball? Compared to the other guests, Lily had hardly experienced anything. She left before the real pain was inflicted. Plus, she had already spoken to two Ministry Officials. Wasn't that enough talking? All Lily wanted to do was return to her normal habits and routines.

To make matters worse, when Lily walked into the Great Hall that day for lunch there was a hush and then a tumult of voices. If they hadn't known about the Ball last night, it was obvious that every student in Hogwarts knew what had happened now.

As she walked to her table, red sparks shot out of the wand she clutched in her left hand.

"Angry much?" Christine asked, tossing a roll at Lily. The redhead deftly caught it in her right hand and threw it back at Christine, bouncing it off her head.

"Ow!" yelled Christine, making Lily smile as she sat down across from her. Her anger lessened a bit.

"You deserved that."

"For what?" asked Christine sadly as she rubbed her head.

"For throwing it at me first," replied Lily. Christine put her head on her folded arms on the table and closed her eyes.

"What happened to Christine?" Tracy asked as she sat down beside Lily and grabbed an apple.

"Lily viciously attacked me," Christine pouted, raising her head enough to look at Tracy.

"Again?" Tracy asked after a brief moment of hesitation and a glance at Lily. Christine pouted more and glared.

"I tried using the _Cruciatus_ , but she dodged. That poor first year, on the other hand, was another story," Lily quipped, looking over the piles of food and feeling utterly apathetic about eating any of it. If she had been looking up, she would have seen a stricken look cross the face of her beater friend. Lily gave up trying to find something appetizing and merely picked up a roll, trying to remember the last time she had eaten when she felt a small wet object bounce off her forehead before she noticed a grape land in front of her on the table.

"Did you just throw a grape at me?" Lily incredulously asked Christine, who nodded. "Why?"

"Pre-emptive strike. You armed yourself." Christine reached over, picked up the grape and popped it in her mouth. Lily winced. Gross.

"I picked up a roll to eat," Lily replied, holding it up in her right hand as if to prove her point.

"I was scared," complained Christine, plucking more grapes from a bowl.

"You're the strangest person I know," Lily said, shaking her head.

"That's not nice," Christine said, putting one, two, and then three grapes in her mouth before she started chewing. "You know a lot of people."

"And of all of them, only you throw grapes at me," Lily replied.

"True," Christine admitted, putting four more grapes into her mouth at once.

"I'll be right back," said Tracy, standing and distracting Lily.

Lily watched her small, brown-haired friend walk down the length of the table and sit beside a tired-looking James Potter and an angry Sirius Black. As Lily watched them, Sirius shouted something, stood and threw his goblet at the table then stormed off. James, meanwhile, tilted his head and rested it on top of Tracy's, looking so tired that Lily wondered if he had fallen asleep.

"Christine?" Lily asked to get her friend's attention, not taking her eyes away from the far end of the table. In response she got a grape to her left temple. She gave her friend a sideways glare and Christine had the grace to look regretful.

"Yes, Lily?" Christine said, trying to look innocent.

"Would you stop with the grapes?"

"It was a reflex."

"It's a stupid reflex. If you're going to throw something at me, let it be galleons or something useful," said Lily, mentally shaking her head before getting back to alleviating her curiosity. "Anyway, what's going on with James?"

"James Potter?" asked Christine, turning to look at him and Tracy, still sitting together at the end of the table. "I don't know. Ask Tracy."

"You're a lot of help."

"I never said I was helpful. I haven't even seen James since New Year's Eve, when he left the party early," Christine replied, reaching across two younger students in order to obtain a piece of pumpkin pie.

"He left early?" Lily asked, watching the younger students lean back in their seats as Christine tried to wedge a piece of the pie out. Lily grabbed her friend's hand and stopped her before asking one of the younger years to pass the whole pie.

"Yep. He received an owl, and then he, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew left in a hurry," Christine said, eyes intently focused on the pie. Lily took the pie from the younger year and cut her friend a piece, handing it to her on a little plate.

"What about Sirius Black?" Lily asked, handing the pie back to a grateful younger student.

"He didn't come at all." Christine took a large bit and bounced in her seat a little, a large smile on her face as she munched away. "And James and Sirius only returned to school today. Remus isn't back yet."

"Remus isn't back yet?" Lily asked, remembering her brief glimpse of him in the Hospital Wing the night before.

"No," Christine replied, taking another delighted bite. Lily decided not to wonder if she had hallucinated.

"And Peter Pettigrew?"

"He came back on time."

"Oh," said Lily, trying and failing to keep her eyes from the far end of the table, trying and failing to not care about what happened over the hols with James Potter, who was conceited and definitely not worth her obsessive ponderings. Lily put down the roll she had yet to take a bite of, and stared blankly at the table as she tried to clear her mind.

 

 

**~*~*~**

Walking down to her patrol felt vaguely odd. Actually, being at school in general felt vaguely odd. Instead of the oppressive protection she experienced at the hospital, when house-elves appeared if Lily so much as sneezed, here she freely roamed the corridors. It was a bit disquieting to be in such a large school without any protection except for a wand that she refused to use.

Normally, she and Remus met in the main corridor, but when she arrived, no one was there to meet her. She was eager to see if he would come, if Christine had been wrong and if Remus had already returned. The corridors seemed longer and more foreign as she walked through them. She wrapped her cloak about herself and bounced up and down on her toes, refusing to be scared by the familiar castle. How many times had she raced through these corridors before? What had changed?

"Lily." The echoing voice made Lily jump and spin around, fumbling for her wand.

"Who's there?" she called as she pointed the wand in the direction of the voice. She saw only darkness until a figure stepped forward and the light from his Head Boy badge lit up Matt McGrath's face.

"Are you all right?" Matt asked.

"I'm fine when people don't sneak up on me in the middle of dark corridors," Lily snapped, trying to control her breathing. With the adrenaline leaving her body, the pain in her chest became more apparent. It dissipated quickly, leaving her body completely by the time her wand was lowered to her side.

"Sorry," Matt said, sounding so sincere that Lily wanted to throw her wand at his head.

"Never mind. Why are you here?"

"Remus hasn't returned to school yet," said Matt, sounding suspicious. Lily herself was suspicious. She could have sworn that Remus had been in the Hospital Wing the night before. It must have shown on her face because Matt soon looked at her and asked, "What are you thinking?"

Lily didn't want to deal with Matt thinking she was crazy. "I was just thinking that he ought to be here by now."

"Well," said Matt, taking a step closer, "I think he is here."

"Then why isn't he in class?" Lily asked, questioning herself as much as him.

"Because no one wants us to know he's here."

"Because he has a horrible disease that we should fear?"

"Because it's easier to excuse him missing a day of classes if he missed a whole week than to write it off as another trip to visit a sick relative," Matt said.

"What are you talking about?"

"I think--" Matt cut himself off. "Oh. I shouldn't have said anything. You have enough to deal with."

"Matt!" exclaimed Lily. "Are you joking? You can't just say that and not explain."

"Are you sure you're well enough?"

"Of course I'm well enough!" Why wouldn't she be?

"Well. I only--" he cut himself off again.

"Yes?" prompted Lily.

"I think Remus Lupin is a werewolf," he said at last.

Of all of the things that Lily had expected Matt to say — from guesses that Remus had a long term illness to a guess that he had tendency to tap dance to suppositions about a really prominent toe-fungus — accusing Remus Lupin of being a werewolf was almost the last thing she could have imagined. It came right after Lily expecting Matt to accuse Lily of bearing Professor Flitwick's child.

"Are you joking?" Lily asked, disbelieving.

"No. Let me explain."

"You don't have to. You're insane. Have you ever spoken with Remus Lupin? He's a mouse. And if you've looked at him lately, you would see that a strong wind could blow him over. The idea of him being a werewolf is ridiculous."

"How often does he miss class?"

"I don't know. A lot. Maybe once a week or something."

"Are you sure it isn't once a month?" Matt asked, pressing. Lily shook her head at the idea, then stopped. Remus certainly seemed to miss class more than just once a month, but maybe since he was the only person who missed class, it seemed more often than it was. "Are you sure he doesn't miss only the days of the full moon, days like today?"

"His friends skive off too, and it's more often than just once a month," Lily said, embarrassingly positive since she noticed every time James wasn't in class.

"I scheduled him and you for every Full moon and every half moon for the rest of the year. Do you know which ones he's cancelled so far? Only the Full moons."

"Listen," Lily said, shaking herself mentally. "He's only cancelled two yet this year, and that might be a coincidence. This time he missed the whole week, not just the moon."

"Exactly why they kept his return a secret, to hide his lycanthropy," Matt said. Lily wondered if this was what crazy people sounded like.

"You’re accusing the headmaster of a large-scale conspiracy."

"Dumbledore can't simply announce that he let a werewolf come to Hogwarts!"

Lily walked over to the stairs and sat on them. This was too much to take in. Too much. Remus couldn't be a werewolf. He couldn't. He was too shy. Too timid. He was weak and frail and sick all the time. Or was he just sick on full moons?

Trying to remember what she learned about werewolves in third year, Lily ran through all of the symptoms. She made a mental checklist werewolf attributes, remembering most vividly that there was no correlation between being a werewolf and any specific personality trait. Werewolves weren't all mean or cruel. They weren't all nice either, though. Some were vicious and horrible. But that was because, in the end, they were human.

Anyone could really be a werewolf and hide it. But what did Lily care if her entire year were werewolves? Then Lily remembered the gruesome pictures in the text regarding werewolves and the scorn with which some students treated them. She remembered the way Tracy had spoken about them after class in particular.

_"Werewolves are real?" Lily asked as she slung her bag over her shoulder._

_"Of course," Tracy said._

_"Do they have big eyes to see you with and big ears to hear you with as they dress up like grandmothers?" asked Lily as they started toward the door._

_"Werewolves aren't a joke. They're really evil," Tracy said, staring intently at Lily. "People say all of them worked for Grindelwald. Can't trust a werewolf."_

_"But they're just werewolves during the full moon, right?" Lily asked, wondering if this was one of those facts Muggles got wrong, like gnomes being remotely cute._

_"Yes, and then they roam around attacking people. That's the key."_

_"But they don't attack people when they're human, right? I mean, it's not like the all walk around snarling at people and lighting things on fire the rest of the month."_

_"The bite turns them evil - as a human and a wolf. Why do you think the Ministry bans them from working for them?" Tracy continued._

_"Because they'd take too many sick days?" Lily joked, trying to lighten the mood, and the conversation was dropped._

Then and now, Lily had failed to find evidence to support Tracy's claim, but Tracy had been convinced. Lily had no doubt that her brunette friend would shun Remus Lupin if she ever heard about her brother's suspicions. Lily glanced over at Matt, standing with his Head Boy badge gleaming in the darkness. Matt was Tracy's brother. They probably thought alike, Lily realized with a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach. Whether or not Remus Lupin was a werewolf, Lily pledged to convince Matt that he was not.

Anyway, Lily was fairly certain that there was no possible way that Remus Lupin was a dark creature. Werewolves did not attend school. They would be a threat to the other students. Professor Dumbledore and the Board of Trustees would never allow such a thing. Plus, it wasn't like anyone could keep a secret that big in this castle. Matt only had to be convinced to agree with Lily.

As Lily came to this realization, she head two sets of footsteps racing toward them from outside the castle. Just as the doors opened, both Lily and Matt turned to see who was racing in. First came one figure, racing straight past the pair, as though not even noticing them. The second came in a moment later and turned right as soon as he was inside before pushing open a secret passage.

"Go that way," Matt yelled, pointing towards the secret passage. Lily nodded and ran pursuit as thoughts of werewolves still occupied most of her thoughts, letting Matt track the other student.

While Lily no longer played football as avidly as she had when she was younger, she was still fit from years of playing The Game with her friends and summers spent rehashing her football skills. So it was that she managed to keep the lone figure in sight even as he dashed inside the castle. So it was that Lily lifted her wand and yelled _stixus_ , effectively stopping his movements as his shoes were melded to the floor. But effing hell her chest hurt each time she tried to breathe.

Panting, Lily walked through the final stretch of space between them, letting her hands cover the painful area in her chest. Each breath was like a knife stabbing her heart; tears threatened to spill down her cheeks, but she held them back long enough to address the student.

"Ten points from--" She stopped when she saw his face. "James?"

"I need to go," he replied, pulling at first his right and then his left foot, as if unwilling to believe he had been caught. As if unwilling to stop moving.

"What--" The pain overwhelmed her. Breathing hurt so much. She tried again. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," he muttered, glancing down the hall as if to run.

"Nothing?" spat Lily, her airway too small to fit the air her body needed. "You and your friend were out after hours wandering the grounds. That's not nothing."

"He's not my friend," he replied, kneeling down and trying to untie his shoes. The laces wouldn't budge.

"Look at me!" snapped Lily. He obeyed, though she regretted her commanding tone as it redoubled her pain. Her left temple began to throb and her forearms hurt. "What were you doing?"

"Just take the points and let me go," James said, standing to glare at Lily. She couldn't focus on what he was saying, couldn't think about anything other than the terrible pain in her body.

"Why?" She wanted to fall to the ground, curl up, and melt into the floor.

"I need to speak with the headmaster."

"The--" Lily couldn't finish her sentence. Her chest felt like it was on fire. She leaned back against the wall.

"The headmaster," finished James. "So get off your power trip and let me go."

"Power-- power trip?" muttered Lily, still aching, still unwilling to let him go without an explanation, still unable to breathe.

"Just take the points!" he yelled. Hearing the desperation in his voice, Lily searched his frantic eyes, saw the bags beneath and the pleading stance. He met and kept her gaze.

" _Finite Incantatum_ ," she whispered.

And James Potter was gone a moment later, racing towards the headmaster's office as the pain caused Lily to crumple against the wall and slide to the ground. She clutched her chest and desperately tried to take normal breaths. Gasping for air, she painfully lifted her wand and tapped her badge twice -- the signal to her patrol partner that she needed help -- and then she laid still.

Footsteps raced toward her, but she could barely hear them.

"Lily?" Matt asked, rushing forward and crouching beside her. "What happened?"

"I--" She let out a short cry of pain, and instead of reassuring him of her health, she only managed to make him more aware of her pain.

"Did someone attack you? Who was it?"

"Pomfrey." She whispered the words between the breaths she was trying so hard to keep regulated. It didn't help. She started to cry as her chest felt like it was shrinking.

"Madam Pomfrey attacked you?"

"No. I need-- I need a potion." Each breath in felt like it was shoving open her airway, painfully. She was tired, hurting, and crying. She just wanted to stop trying to breathe altogether. It hurt. It hurt so much.

"Don't close your eyes. Lily! Wake-up!" Matt said, leaning down to pick her up.

"No!" Lily cried out, her eyes flying open, the moment he tried to lift her. "It hurts. It hurts. I can't breathe."

"It's okay. You'll be okay," Matt said, then he cast a Mobilicorpus Charm and the two were on their way to the Hospital Wing. He ran, floating Lily in front of him, between corridors and portraits until at last he shoved open the Hospital Wing doors.

"What is the meaning--"

"Lily Evans. She can't breathe. She keeps grabbing at her chest."

And soon a potion was in front of her and Lily was drinking it, but before the relief was complete, she blacked out.

 

 

 

 


	13. Another Round

"Don't you ever tire of worrying your friends?" Tracy asked, walking into the Hospital Wing with a bouquet of flowers, a box of chocolate frogs, and a reassuring smile. Christine bounced in a moment later. Lily scowled in response.

"I didn't mean to end up in here," Lily snapped. Tracy's smile faltered as she put the flowers on the end of the bed.

"Angry much?" Christine asked cheerfully, sitting down on a chair and riffling through the sweets that other people had already sent. Lily rolled her eyes at that pile of gifts. All of those boxes had cards with quip sayings attached: Get Well, We Miss You, To Our Favorite Prefect. If she read through a list of gift givers, she would probably only recognize half the names and only be friends with half of that number.

"I'm not angry. I'm frustrated," Lily replied, feeling guilty for making Tracy flinch. Then she felt irritated for feeling guilty. It was like an evil cycle that Lily couldn't escape.

It was nearly dinnertime on Saturday and Lily felt like she had been in the Hospital Wing forever. It was worse than St. Mungo's. Madam Pomfrey was a head case. Honestly, the woman never left. She either sat in her office or forced Lily to drink some disgusting potion or paced in the room just watching Lily. Didn't that woman ever eat? Didn't she have to visit the loo? Lily considered making a break for it, but figured Pomfrey was crazy enough to have put wards on the doors to keep patients from running away.

"How long will you have to be in here?" Tracy asked, standing beside Christine.

"Too long," Lily replied, kicking absently at her sheets and enjoying watching them puff up and collapse.

"And how long is too long?" Tracy pressed.

"At least another day."

"We'll have to reschedule the Game," Christine said, unwrapping a chocolate frog.

"The Game?" Lily asked, looking away from the sheets and at Christine.

"Yes," replied Christine just before her chocolate frog jumped out of her hand, onto the floor, and under the bed. The blonde girl, never to be deterred by minor obstacles, immediately dove after it. Lily turned to Tracy.

"We were going to play tonight, but don't worry. We'll play next week," Tracy said, shrugging her shoulders.

"I could play tonight," announced Lily, blatantly lying and deciding not to care.

"It's no big deal."

"I can play."

"Really?" Tracy asked, neither questioning nor accepting Lily's proclamation.

"Yes," said Lily, nodding emphatically and ignoring the sharp pain in her chest.

Christine's head popped up from under the bed, mouth covered in chocolate, before she said, "Liar."

"Excuse me?" Lily asked, quirking an eyebrow at her friend.

"You're excused," said Christine as she pushed herself off the ground, wiped off her robes and sat down on the chair next to Lily's bed.

"That's an annoying response," Lily commented, eyeing her friend strangely as the blonde girl reached for another chocolate frog.

"You asked to be excused," Christine said, ripping open another package and squeaking when this frog also began hopping away.

"She's being evasive," Lily complained to Tracy, who still wore that disturbing, confused and pitying look on her face.

"Well, you know Christine," Tracy replied, looking over at Christine jumping after the chocolate frog.

"I doubt she even understands the word evasive," said a person walking into the room. Lily turned and saw Sam - Sam who was carrying various rolls of parchment in her hands.

"I know what evasive means!" Christine called, leaping onto an empty hospital bed and missing the frog by inches. "This frog is being evasive!"

"I thought they were only supposed to have one good jump in them," Sam whispered to Lily. Both girls laughed as they watched Christine yelp in frustration as she leapt over another patient's bed in order to capture the elusive frog.

"These are modified frogs," Tracy explained, picking up the package and handing it to Lily. Written on it in red sparkling ink were the words, A Gift from Us (Not Them).

"Who is 'us'?" Sam asked.

"Sirius Black and James Potter," Tracy replied. Christine returned to her seat, a frog leg dangling out of her mouth and still kicking. She crunched down with her teeth, and the leg disappeared as she swallowed it.

"That must be one of the most disgusting things that I have ever seen in my life. Ever," Lily said, pointing to Christine's mouth.

"It couldn't be the most disgusting," Christine said, trying to open another frog. This time, Sam took it out of her hands and exchanged it with a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. Christine didn't even look fazed as she tore into the box.

"It's right up there with watching Daniel Smith's accidentally engorged toad sit on Professor Kettleburn, and looking at Petunia's face," Lily said.

"But it tastes so much better than either of those," Christine replied, popping a grey bean in her mouth. She made a face, spit the bean into her hand, and said sadly, "Concrete."

"Why did James Potter and Sirius Black send Lily a gift?" Sam asked, dragging Lily's thoughts away from her interesting dialogue with Christine and right into a topic that she hated and wished to avoid forever: James Potter.

"They didn't. I happened to have an extra box lying around my room. I thought she'd enjoy it," Tracy said, picking a bean out of Christine's handful, throwing it up in the air and catching it in her mouth. She smiled. "Watermelon."

More than anything else, Lily hated that she was disappointed by the fact that James hadn't sent the sweets. She should not care about whether or not he noticed that she was ill! He called her a Muggle. He was the reason she had run through the castle and ended up inflaming the infection in her chest, causing her to feel the chest pains. He was the reason she was stuck in the Hospital Wing and steadfastly suffering at the hands of the anti-social, overbearing Pomfrey.

Well, sure, the Death Eaters who actually cast the curses that sent her flying into a table were also to blame, but Lily would have been just fine drinking her potion once a night for a month if it hadn't been for that stupid James Potter.

So why hadn't she reported James? Why had she claimed she never saw the person she was chasing?

Arg. Why did she still like him?

"In any case, I brought you a present," Sam said, pulling up a chair on the other side of the bed. Christine and Tracy began throwing the beans into each other's mouths, ignoring Sam and Lily all together. Sam set a pile of parchment next to Lily's right side.

"Blank parchment. Gee, thanks," Lily commented sarcastically. Sam smiled and made a half-hearted attempt at smacking Lily's shoulder.

"This, I will have you know, is nearly twenty feet of parchment."

"Again: Gee, thanks."

"Shut it, you. I remember how boring it is in the Hospital Wing once Pomfrey kicks guests out. This parchment is meant to alleviate that boredom, at least a little." Sam explained, handing a roll of parchment over to Lily's care. The redhead took it and flipped it over a couple of times.

"Is it special parchment?"

"Special parchment?" queried Sam.

"Does it change color? Is it edible? Will it burn a hole in itself every time I write your name?" asked Lily, rattling off a list of not-so-distant possibilities for the parchment.

"No," Sam replied. "It's just regular parchment. That you write on."

"Except it makes your words dance around the page?" pressed Lily.

"No. Your words just sit there. Like normal."

"Like normal?" Lily repeated, disbelieving. She picked up the wand off the nightstand and poked the parchment.

"You're not going to find any hidden magical spells," Sam said, taking the wand out of Lily's hand and placing it back on the stand.

"Then I don't understand," Lily said. "You brought me nearly twenty feet of regular old parchment?"

"And two quills and four bottles of ink," Sam added, digging through her pockets and procuring the items.

"My joy is a little overwhelming. I may be too excited to continue speaking."

"Hey you, saucy redhead, the sarcasm is not appreciated."

"Duly noted," Lily said, taking the quills and ink from her friend without understanding.

"I brought the parchment because-well--" Sam glanced over at Christine and Tracy who were now throwing beans at each other from across the room, still trying to catch them in their mouths. "You went through something--"

"Sam, I already told you, it wasn't--"

"You went through something that none of us understand," Sam continued, ignoring Lily's interruption, "and you shouldn't have to keep silent about the whole thing just because we don't understand what you went through. So I thought I'd give you parchment and quills and ink and hope you feel more comfortable writing about what happened than you do speaking."

"Nothing happened," Lily replied weakly, looking down at her hands.

"You keep saying that," Sam said, "but that doesn't mean you don't have anything to write about. For instance, you could cover that entire twenty-foot space with James Potter's name encircled in hearts."

"Stupid bugger," Lily said half-heartedly, still too overwhelmed by the thoughtfulness of her best friend to muster the proper amount of animosity at his name.

"James or me?"

"James, of course."

"How about him saying you looked good enough to be on his arm?" Sam asked. Lily smiled weakly, remembering James's stupid comment on New Year's Eve.

"That was so ridiculous," Lily said with a self-mocking smile

"I wonder if he thinks he's suave."

"Of course he does!" Lily replied, still smiling. "He also believes he's charming, handsome, clever, the greatest flier in the history of the world, and irresistible."

"Let's not leave out hilarious and graceful," Sam added. The two girls caught each other's eye and burst into laughter, thinking of James Potter and knowing that Lily whole-heartedly (and rather grudgingly) agreed with all of those adjectives.

"Just to clarify," Lily began, her laughter (though not her good mood) ebbing, "you brought me twenty feet of parchment on which to write my feelings. Why not just bring me a diary?"

"Magical diaries are creepy. They talk back."

"Ew! Like mirrors?" Lily hated talking mirrors. She hated that they seemed so much like people. She hated that she felt like she had to cover them with a blanket at night in order to give herself some privacy. To have a diary speak back, knowing your most private thoughts, was a horrible idea.

"Exactly, and I know how you feel about them--"

"Ow!" cried Christine. Both Sam and Lily spun to see what happened, the pain in Lily's side flaring with the motion. But the pain, she later decided, was well worth seeing Madam Pomfrey's explosion as she realized two girls were launching Every Flavor Beans across her Hospital Wing with the aim to hit the other person's mouth.

"Are you mad?" shrieked the irate Pomfrey, grabbing Christine by the ear and dragging her across the room, where she grabbed Tracy's ear. "You could have choked! You could have done irreparable damage to your esophagus! Diving over a sick student's bed like that! What were you thinking?"

The yelling continued as she dragged the two wailing girls out of the Infirmary with the strong recommendation to only return when on the brink of death.

Lily winked at Sam before grabbing a Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean bag, opening it, and popping one into her own mouth.

"I hope you don't think you're funny!" came the sharp voice of Madame Pomfrey. Lily turned to face the still-fuming matron as she marched back into the hospital wing and collected all of the bags of beans. "These are meant to be eaten not thrown!"

"What about thrown and then eaten?" Lily asked, smiling. Sam shook her head, amazed at Lily's audacity as the redhead threw a bean into the air and tried to catch it in her mouth.

"No!" snapped Pomfrey, snatching the bean right out of the air before marching off to her office.

"Wow. She has great reflexes. I wonder if she ever played Seeker," Lily commented, grabbing the wand and turning on the Wizarding Radio on her bedside table.

"You never stop, do you?" Sam asked. Lily shook her head, flicking through the stations hope to come across a recognizable song. She did not find one.

"Sam?" Lily began, still flicking through the channels as she considered the best way to broach the topic.

"Yes, Lily?" Sam replied, her tone serious. Lily stopped flipping through the channels and met her friend's gaze.

"What would you tell me if I told you I knew a werewolf?" Lily asked in a would-be-casual voice. Sam laughed.

"First, I'd ask you where you met him," Sam said, crossing her legs. "Second, I'd ask how you knew he was a werewolf."

"Well, he's this kid I met--"

"A young werewolf? That's so sad," Sam said, shaking her head, causing her black hair to swish behind her. Lily looked at her.

"It's not sad," Lily replied. "It's just something that happened to him. He'll deal with it."

"How?" Sam replied. "He won't be allowed to attend Hogwarts or get a job, really. The Ministry restrictions are overwhelming. He'll have to grow up with prejudice and fear following him everywhere. It's a sad life."

"Why couldn't he come to Hogwarts? Is that a rule?"

"No. It's just that no headmaster in his right mind would invite a werewolf to study here."

"Why not?" Lily asked, growing more and more irritated with the situation as it progressed.

"Because they're dangerous."

"All of them? Inherently?"

"Well," Sam said, "Yes. It's something every child knows growing up in the magical world."

"Including Tracy?"

"Especially Tracy. She grew up in a very pureblood home," Sam replied, as if that ought to have made any sense to Lily. Honestly.

"But Tracy lives in a Muggle neighborhood."

"Only because the Experimental Charms Department moved her parents there last summer. Before that she lived in her old family home in a very Magical area."

"I still don't understand why that ought to matter. Tracy is so laid-back. She never fights with anyone"

"I don't know that I would call Tracy laid-back. Her opinions are as strong as anyone's; she just doesn't share them all the time. She was raised in a traditional, Gryffindor home. She dislikes Slytherins to extreme extents, even if she refuses to make a spectacle of herself by yelling at them. She also dislikes werewolves and mistrusts vampires. It's just how things are."

"That's stupid."

"It's how it is," Sam said.

"But it shouldn't have to be that way!"

"Miss Evans?" interrupted a voice in the doorway. Both Lily and Sam looked over and saw Professor McGonagall enter the room, a piece of parchment in hand.

"Yes, Professor?" Lily asked.

"You have received a summons." Professor McGonagall strode into the room and over to Lily's bed, holding out the parchment.

"Yay!" Lily cried, taking the piece of parchment and scanning it over. It looked official. "What's a summons?"

"The Ministry is holding an official inquiry regarding the events of New Year's Eve and you have been summoned as a witness."

"Oh. I take back my 'yay,' then," Lily said, leaning back and trying to read the boring letter.

_To: Miss Lily Evans_

_Your presence is requested... blah blah blah... regarding the events of December 31st... blah... testimonial presented before the Wizengamot ... blah_

"What does this say?" Lily asked, giving up on focusing and just asking the Transfiguration professor.

"It says that you are to report to the Ministry at ten in the morning tomorrow, accompanied by Professor Dumbledore. As the proceeding may last all day, you are excused from tomorrow's prefect meeting."

"Professor Dumbledore?" Lily asked, shocked. Did he leave the castle? Silly question, that. Of course he left the castle, but Lily just couldn't imagine it.

"Yes."

"Why not you? Doesn't the headmaster have something more pressing to do with his time?" Lily asked. Sam smiled.

"Nothing that cannot wait a day to be settled," McGonagall said.

"But this isn't that big of a deal, right? I mean, I wasn't there for the worst of it," Lily commented, looking at Professor McGonagall for affirmation. Instead of agreeing with Lily, instead of soothing her fears and nodding her head and telling her that she understood, Professor McGonagall avoided Lily's gaze and turned toward the other end of the infirmary.

"I must speak with Madam Pomfrey," the Transfiguration professor announced, walking away.

"That was odd," Lily said, looking over at Sam, only to have her dark-haired friend nod and look away just as quickly as Professor McGonagall had. Looking at Sam's profile, taking in the moist eyes and the tension so evident in her body language, Lily could only stare. What was wrong with these people? Why were they avoiding her?

And then Lily understood. She looked at Sam's turned head and she understood.

Lily had assumed that when she returned to Hogwarts, she could return to the life that she had led before. After walking through Diagon Alley and seeing it unchanged despite the tumult in her own life, Lily had assumed that nothing else would change either. If the alley, which was a symbol of the wizarding world in Lily's mind, didn't react to the attacks, why would anything else? Unfortunately, while Hogwarts itself and the people within it were not changed, their perception of Lily had undergone a transformation.

They looked away from her, unable to meet her eyes because they were scared. Not that they were scared of Lily herself, but more of what she represented. The terror of Voldemort had only been happening for four years, and to most of them it was a distant problem, one that the Aurors would eventually fix. At any rate, Voldemort was not their problem. Or he hadn't been, until someone they knew was threatened and hurt by him.

Until Lily.

To them -- the people who had never experienced what she had, who had never known any experience in which their lives were threatened -- Lily was unrecognizable. They could neither sympathies nor empathize with the girl. All they could offer her was twenty feet of blank parchment and a summons from the Ministry

**~*~*~**

Traveling on the Hogwarts Express had always been a fun experience for Lily. She always sat in the old-fashioned compartments with friends and laughed her way down the tracks. Sounds of owls squawking and frogs croaking calmed her mind as the ever-present aroma of chocolate calmed her.

The late trip to Hogwarts after her stay in St. Mungo's had been long and dull, lacking the chatter of friends and the soothing smells and sounds Lily associated with the train. But this trip was just awkward. Terribly, terribly awkward.

Originally, Lily had been disgruntled about the whole trip, convinced that giving testimonial to two different Ministry Officials ought to have been enough for forever. Her one consoling thought - the one that kept her morbidly content - was that this trip conflicted with a Prefect meeting. Professor McGonagall never let students skip the meetings, not for detentions, not for Quidditch practices, and certainly not for runs to the loo. But apparently, Ministry Summons were cause enough to miss a meeting.

"Would you care for a piece of chocolate, Miss Evans?" And there was the very source of the awkwardness: Headmaster Dumbledore.

"No thank you, Professor," Lily replied. Had he really offered her some sweets? Did people that old eat sweets? _Apparently, they do,_ Lily thought as Professor Dumbledore munched happily away, his long beard bobbing up and down with the motion of his jaw.

What was she supposed to talk about with this man? She knew she could talk to him -- her mother often said she could talk to a wall for hours if she were in the mood -- but it seemed wrong to just talk to Dumbledore. Wasn't he a war hero? He had defeated the most powerful dark wizard in a century. Not that you could tell by the way he just kept munching away on that chocolate, blue eyes focused on Lily.

How long were these train rides? Another ten minutes of this silence would kill her.

"I'm sorry that you had to come with me, Professor. I know that you have more important things to do," Lily began, meeting his stare.

"More important?" he asked, those blue eyes unwavering. Something about his glance bothered Lily, though she was not sure what it was.

"Well, I'm sure you have other things you'd rather be doing than baby-sitting a student," Lily explained, shrugging.

"I am not baby-sitting you, Miss Evans." Seriously. Why were those eyes so unnerving? She briefly considered looking away but decided that would be rude.

"Oh. I know," corrected Lily, trying to eat her apparently-offending words. "I only meant to say I'm sorry that you were dragged into this."

"I was not 'dragged into this.' I insisted upon accompanying you."

"You did?" Lily asked, shocked. That wasn't what McGonagall had said.

"I wanted to be sure that you were as comfortable as possible at the inquiry."

"So _you_ came along?" Lily said it before thinking and realizing how horribly offensive it must have sounded. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that the way it sounded."

"It is quite all right, Miss Evans," he said, smiling. Actually, he was grinning. This one hundred and twenty year old man was grinning at Lily as if she had told a most amusing joke. And just as with Mrs. Crouch at the Ball, Lily knew how to talk to him now. She knew what would make him smile and feel comfortable. But instead of beginning to talk to him, Lily decided to stare out the window and not be confused by the fact that the headmaster was so personable. It didn't work. Not two minutes later, she turned back to find Dumbledore prying apart two melted pieces of chocolate and laughed out loud.

"You could just eat them both, you know," Lily said. Once more, she wanted to grab the words that had spilled out of her mouth and shove them into her back pocket. What was wrong with her? Why couldn't she just learn to accept social classes and distinctions? Why did she always treat everyone like her equal instead of what they were: respected headmasters and the wives of future Ministers of Magic?

"When I was a child," Professor Dumbledore said, looking at Lily over the tops of his glasses, "my mother always told my to eat sweets one at a time."

"Were there sweets way back then?" Lily asked in a falsely interested tone.

Oh goodness. Had she just made fun of the headmaster's age? She should just shoot herself in the foot. She was already making a big enough fool of herself that being bloodied and in real physical pain might make for a welcome change. When her embarrassed eyes met his, she was glad to see mirth in them.

"Indeed there were."

"I'm so sorry, Professor. I don't know why I'm saying these things."

"What things?"

"The stupid comments about your age and the way you eat and-- oh goodness. I'm doing it again. I'll stop now."

"I am enjoying our discussion. Most people avoid telling me jokes."

"Oh. Um. Sorry?" Lily's hand flew up to her necklace and twisted it in her fingers. What was going on here?

"No need to apologize."

And so the train ride passed back into the silent realm and Lily stared out her window as her headmaster continued prying chocolates apart.

 

**~*~*~**

Was it possible for a building to be pompous and stuffy? Lily had not thought so until she entered the Ministry of Magic, but the moment she walked out of the telephone booth she realized that not only could buildings be pompous, they could also irritate people rather easily. Especially when they contained the most obnoxious art that Lily had ever seen. For instance, the most prominent, eye-catching object in the lobby of the Ministry happened to be a statue of a wizard being worshiped by other magical species.

"That's gross," Lily said, pinning her pin (Lily Evans: Witness) onto her robes.

"The statue?" Professor Dumbledore asked, leading her toward the guard by the elevator.

"Yes," replied Lily, still eying it with extreme dislike. "House-elves had their own civilization by 586b.c.e. when the humans began to hire them out as workers. Centaurs still have a completely self-sufficient society and social order, and the goblins have little less than open hostility directed toward us."

"You do not believe wizards are the supreme race?" Dumbledore handed his wand to the silent guard and Lily did the same a moment later.

"No. We just have the most deadly weapons."

"Many people would disagree with your conclusion."

"Luckily, I don't speak to stupid people," Lily replied, taking her wand out of the proffered hand of the guard and following Dumbledore into an elevator. She missed Professor Dumbledore's smile.

For a "magical" building, this place felt remarkably similar to her father's company building. They had a Muggle phone booth as their entrance, ugly statues, marble floors, and barren elevators that took forever to reach the basement levels that they needed to visit.

"How long will this--" The opening of the elevator doors and the flash of a hundred cameras interrupted Lily's question. "What in the world?"

"The press corps has been invited. I would recommend that you answer none of their questions, though you may of course choose to do as you like," Professor Dumbledore said, walking forward and into the mass of men and women who had either a quill poised above a piece of parchment or a camera blinking at Lily.

Lily followed behind Dumbledore with her head held high and her back straight. She met the eye of every reporter and smiled at them, nodding to the ones who smiled back and ignoring the ones that did not. She would not let them intimidate her. They, for their part, seemed less interested in her once they saw her and realized that she was not a public figure like the other guests/witnesses.

And so Lily came to the door marked for witnesses, where Professor Dumbledore assured her there would be no press before telling her she would see him soon and walking away. Deciding not to be miffed by his strange departure, Lily opened the door and walked into one of the most beautiful lounges that she had ever seen in her life - couches lined one side of the room and a buffet of fruits, vegetables, and sandwiches was laid out on the other side. People were milling around, glasses in one hand, chatting with the other people.

Lily barely had time to take in the scene when someone rushed toward her and enveloped her in a tight embrace that briefly caused her pain.

"Lily!" exclaimed the exuberant bloke. Lily's heart swelled.

"Ian?" Lily smiled as they broke apart.

"Hey," Ian said, grinning at her.

"What are you doing here?"

"I was summoned. Want to eat?" Ian asked, walking toward the buffet table.

"But you weren't at the Ball," Lily protested as Ian placed an empty plate in her hand and took one for himself.

"Exactly," he replied, scooping a mound of strawberries onto his plate and then onto hers. Not expecting him to do so, Lily's grip on the plate faltered and it fell from her hands. She began to bend over to pick up the spilled items, when they disappeared into the floors. Lily gave a squeak of surprise and then looked up and met Ian's silver eyes.

"My plate disappeared," she said.

"I saw," Ian said, leaning past Lily to grab another plate and hand it to her. "Sometimes magic creeps me out."

"I know what you mean," Lily said. Ian scooped another bunch of strawberries and then looked directly at Lily.

"Are you ready to try this again?" he asked, scooper poised above her plate.

"I was born ready."

"Obviously not," Ian said as he deposited the fruit onto her plate.

"Obviously nothing. The evidence of any previous clumsiness has disappeared," Lily shot back, smirking as he reached a couple of rolls with one hand.

"Alas, magic foils my point."

"Again," they both added, laughing at the summer-time joke.

The pair marched down the long table grabbing whatever food they wanted. Actually, grabbing whatever food Ian wanted as he was the one who did the actual grabbing. Lily kept both her hands on her ever-growing plate.

"You never answered my question," Lily mentioned as the pair took their plates toward one of the couches on the other side of the room.

"Which question?"

"Why are you here?" Lily repeated, sitting carefully on the couch as she balanced her plate in her hands.

"They probably want to know why I turned down my invitation to the Ball," Ian said, sitting beside her and arranging the plate on his knees.

"And why did you?" Lily asked, realizing that she did not have a fork and deciding to eat with her fingers. She picked up a strawberry.

"I had a New Year's Eve party that I couldn't miss." Lily's hand stopped midway to her mouth as her eyes shot up to meet Ian's.

"You turned down the Crystal Ball in favor of Tracy's party?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Why hadn't you told me Sam invited you to Tracy's?" Lily asked, putting the strawberry back down on her plate

"Sam invited me after I'd already responded to your December owl. Besides, I was sure she'd tell you," Ian replied, taking a bite out of a banana.

"Well, yes, but that's not the point," Lily said.

"What is the point? That you'd have gone to Tracy's if I'd only told you I was going there too?"

"Maybe."

"Shut it," Ian said, finished the banana and putting the peel on the ground. It disappeared a moment later. "How cool is that?"

"Oh. It's amazing," Lily muttered sarcastically. Ian looked up at her and smiled.

"Don't be mean just because you made a poor decision when you chose the Ball over that party," he said. He was not a classically good-looking guy. Not really. His silver eyes sometimes glowed and freaked Lily out.

"I'm never mean. I am like an angel on Earth, really. People stop me on the street just to wonder at my kindness," Lily said flippantly, throwing her hair over her shoulder.

"And you're humble to boot."

"Humility is overrated," Lily said, laughing despite her best efforts. Ian smiled and shook his head at her words. Over the summer they had not been particularly close. The only time they spent together, Christian was there too, taking up all of Lily's attention. They'd had a good time, often laughing together, but it was only after the school year began - after she broke up with Christian - that they became close by writing owls to one another once a month or so.

"Seriously, though, why are you here?" Lily asked.

"Seriously, they want to know why I didn't go to the Ball," Ian replied, taking up another strawberry.

"Why?"

"Because the Ball was attacked."

"And?" Lily pressed, not willing to accept the implications of that sentence.

"And they want to know if I knew it was going to happen and avoided going in order to save myself," Ian replied, shrugging. Lily did not exactly think this was a shrugging moment. The Ministry had to be the most paranoid group of wizards ever.

"That's so stupid."

"No. They have every right to be suspicious. The Ball is a once in a lifetime experience and I turned it down for a school party? That's fishy." He riffled through the rest of his food as if trying to decide what he really wanted.

"No it's not. I wish I'd gone to that party instead of the Ball," Lily said, poking her fruit with her pointer finger.

"Sure you do," Ian said, his voice holding a suggestive tone that made Lily look up. When she did, Ian winked at her.

"What was that for?" Lily asked.

"What was what for?"

"That wink. Why did you just wink at me?" pressed Lily, confused.

"Oh that," Ian said, tearing his roll in two and munching away on half of it. "That was because I know the real reason you didn't want to be at the Ball."

"Voldemort and his Death Eaters attacked it and I was extensively injured?" Lily ventured, picking up her own banana and taking a bite.

"Well, that would've been a good reason, too," Ian admitted. "But I know that you wish you'd been at the party - where James Potter was."

Lily almost choked on her own tongue. Then she began coughing frantically. What? Had Ian really just said that? Had Sam told him? She must have. She was the only one that knew.

"What are you talking about?" Lily asked between coughs.

"I'm talking about you and James Potter--"

"I don't know what you mean by that."

"Yeah, right," Ian said sarcastically. "You don't know about you and James Potter. But don't worry, I approve. It's a good match. I never understood Christian and you together. He's a good friend and all, but he's really boring and you really aren't. And I know I've only met James Potter twice, but I think--"

"Who've you been talking to?" Lily asked, reaching out and grabbing his arm before he ate another bite of that roll.

"Tracy," Ian said cryptically. And while Lily was sure that he kept on teasing her and eating his various fruits and breads, she was no longer listening. Instead, she was trying to figure out what Tracy had said to Ian. Tracy didn't know about Lily's obsession, did she? No. She couldn't have. Plus, there was no longer an obsession, Lily reminded herself. James had called her a Muggle and then he'd made that stupid comment on New Year's. But what did Tracy know - or think she knew?

"Well, they're calling my number."

"What?" Lily asked, looking over to seeing Ian standing up with his empty plate. The boy was like a garbage disposal.

"They're calling me in to testify," Ian explained, pointing toward a man standing next to an open door. "I don't think I can come back in here after, so I'll owl you soon."

"Oh. All right," Lily said, standing and giving him a hug good-bye. "Give 'em hell."

"Give who hell?"

"The inquisition," Lily replied, smiling. "I'll give you a sickle if you bring in some strawberries and throw them at them any time they ask you a question."

"Ah, you and your sickle bets." Ian tossed his plate onto the ground, smiled at Lily as it disappeared, and then walked out of the room and behind that dark door.

 

**~*~*~**

Ian, with his plate of fruit and rolls, was the first acquaintance she ran into that night, but he was not the last. The second came after two very boring hours of waiting, when the buffet table changed from fruits and breads into sandwiches.

"Lily Evans!" the voice called out, dragging Lily's attention away from the buffet table and over to the door which had just opened. As it shut, blocking out the flashes of cameras, Lily saw Mrs. Crouch marching towards her with three bodyguard-looking types in tow.

"Mrs. Crouch!" Lily cried, standing up off the couch. Lily walked toward her and embraced her as if she were an old friend instead of a practical stranger, embraced her as if she were a missing relative, finally returned. She embraced her as she used to embrace her mother after Faith Evans returned from a long vacation.

"I was worried about you. I heard that you were in St. Mungo's until five days ago," Cordelia Crouch said as the pair separated and walked back toward one of the couches.

"Yes, I was. It was not the most pleasant experience of my life," Lily replied.

"Nor of mine."

"How long were you in the hospital?" They sat down together, Mrs. Crouch's bodyguards hovering uncomfortably close.

"Four days. Those house-elves nearly drove me batty." Lily smiled and nodded, remembering the way the elves had cropped up out of nowhere in order to assist with every menial task. She glanced around at the bodyguards surrounding them.

"I'm glad you're all right. I was worried and no one believed that I knew you," Lily explained, looking questioningly at Mrs. Crouch.

"Yes, the Ministry Official asked me to verify your story."

"So you spoke with her?"

"Her? No. I spoke with my husband's assistant. I believe he also spoke with you." Lily didn't understand. Had Director Brooks spoken with Mrs. Crouch or not? If not, why not? "I told him everything. You need not feel nervous about speaking today."

"I'm not nervous," Lily protested automatically. She took in the way she was shaking her legs up and down, her hands locked together on those legs, and the clenched muscles in her back. "Hm. Well. Never mind. I guess I am nervous. Why am I nervous?"

"Why wouldn't you be nervous?"

"Because my testimony hardly matters. I left early. It isn't like I saw the important parts," Lily explained. "I didn't go through anything, really."

"You didn't go through anything?" scoffed Cordelia Crouch. She leaned forward and placed her warm, comforting hands over Lily's. "I saw those spells that hit your shield."

"I don't remember much of that. I only remember shoving you -- sorry about that by the way -- and then waking up in the hospital."

"You're sorry about shoving me aside?" Mrs. Crouch asked, incredulity lacing her words. "You saved my life."

Lily laughed aloud, extracting her hands from under Mrs. Crouch's.

"I did not save your life!" Lily exclaimed.

"Of course you did."

"No. You were in the way of my Shield Charm." Lily tried to dispel horrifying thought that Mrs. Crouch had told anyone that she thought Lily had actually helped her. Cordelia Crouch had obviously been hit in the head. Hard.

"You pushed me away from a Death Eater that was about to grab me. You pushed me right at a Portkey," protested Mrs. Crouch.

"I didn't mean to!" Lily stood up and crossed her arms over her chest and fingered the charm on her necklace.

"But you did." Mrs. Crouch stood up and Lily took a step backward.

"No. You just aren't remembering correctly. I needed to cast my charm and I would have hit you if you'd stayed where you were. It was an instinct." The bodyguards, interestingly enough, shifted ever-so-slightly left and right with Mrs. Crouch. It was like they were one unit moving through four bodies.

"You saved my life and I will never forget that. I owe you a Wizard's Debt."

"What? No. No, you don't!" Lily exclaimed, taking another step backward. By this point, Lily saw a movement out of the corner of her eyes and turned to look. What she found was that many guests in close proximity had taken note of the conversation between Mrs. Crouch and herself. She turned and met the gaze of each of them, smiling a large, fake smile. As she knew they would, they turned away once met with her own close scrutiny.

"Scaring away politicians?" Mrs. Crouch quipped, smirking.

Lily turned back to the woman in front of her. "Listen, whatever you think you owe me, you don't."

"It's a Wizard's Debt. You can't just release a person from that obligation."

"Yes I can, and I do. I release you. You owe me nothing. Please don't think you do. Forget this obligation and your debt will be fulfilled."

Then a strange thing happened: air rushed out of Lily as if pulled by magic, leaving the girl gasping for breath a moment later, her hands resting on her knees as she tried to regain her breath.

"You," the strangely-raspy voice of Mrs. Crouch began. Lily looked up to find a bodyguard holding each of her arms. She shrugged them off and moved forward, holding Lily by the shoulders. "You gave up a Wizarding Debt?"

"What?" Lily asked, still confused and short of breath.

"I've never heard of anyone--"

"Cordelia Crouch!" interrupted a magically amplified voice. Both Lily and Mrs. Crouch turned, the latter's arm still grasping Lily's shoulder. "Cordelia Crouch, please come forward."

"I have to go give my testimony," Mrs. Crouch explained quietly, releasing Lily's shoulder.

"Please don't tell them that you think I saved your life."

Lily had expected her request to be met with an apology and an explanation about having to follow protocol. She had expected Mrs. Crouch to tell her that she needed to tell the council everything that happened. Instead, Mrs. Crouch's soft blue eyes met Lily's green ones and she nodded once. Then, Mrs. Cordelia Crouch, wife of the future Minister of Magic, stepped forward and embraced Lily Evans, simple, sixth year Muggle-born, Lily Evans.

"I've never met anyone quite like you. You just gave up your right-- it's incredible."

Lily was not entirely sure she was supposed to have heard that last sentence. Mrs. Crouch sounded like she was talking to herself. To some degree, Lily was right. Until that moment Cordelia Crouch had lived in a world governed by rules and regulations - rules of society that she bent and rules of law by which she carefully abided. She married a man of equal stature in society with equal values. She had produced an heir and raised her son as best she could. She was everything she was supposed to be.

So why was it that Lily Evans's simple act of releasing her from a Wizard's Debt left her feeling incomplete? Why was it that a single gesture of complete selflessness shocked her and made her feel almost frightened?

In the years to come, when the blacks and whites of Cordelia Crouch's world slowly danced together to form grey - when her husband authorized the Aurors to use the Unforgivables, when the Ministry began sentencing without trials, when she sat at the "trial" of her son and watched her husband throw him away -- she would remember this unfulfilled Wizard's Debt.

Many took note of this last exchange between Cordelia Crouch and Lily Evans. They cared, at the time, because Mrs. Crouch was prominent and important in the Wizarding world. In thirty years, after the story of Bartemus Crouch Junior surfaces, this embrace will be remembered in a different light. It will be the last time these two women stood together, two women who would sacrifice their lives for their sons, two women who thought they were doing the right thing. Two women: one whose sacrifice would bring about the destruction of the Dark Lord, the other who would give the Dark Lord the tool to rise again.

Two women. Two sons. Two sacrifices.

One Wizard's Debt unpaid.

 

 

 


	14. Who Were These People?

"How much longer can this last?" Lily muttered.

She was lying on a couch, head against the armrest and her left arm thrown over her eyes. She had briefly considered standing since the other people in the room were politicians and important figures that refused to even sit on the couches, let alone lie down on one. Then she mentally shrugged and lay down on the couch anyway. Let them do what they wanted, Lily had been here for six hours now and she was ready to get this over with. Honestly. They told her to be here at ten. It was nearly four-thirty.

"Lily Evans."

Lily sat up, thinking she was being called to speak, only to realize belatedly that the voice had been too quiet and too close for it to have originated across the room. She looked to her left and right but could not find anyone that looked to be addressing her.

"Lily Evans."

She spun around and jumped into a standing position in surprise when she realized the speaker was standing directly behind her. When she identified the speaker she almost took a step backward. She was one of the ugliest people that Lily had ever seen. The woman was short with dark, tight skin, and many moles sprinkled on her face. There were five on her left eyelid alone.

"Lily Evans," she whispered with her German accent, and Lily had a brief flash of memory.

"I saw you at the Leaky Cauldron in August. You grabbed my arm," Lily said. _And then your eyes flashed orange and you practically ran from me_ , she recalled but did not say aloud.

"You were at the Ball?" the woman asked, placing her slightly pudgy hands on the back of the couch. Lily wanted to take a step backward but didn't.

"Yes."

"Shouldn't have been," the woman said.

"I was a guest of a friend of mine," Lily explained. But why did she explain? Why was she talking to this spooky little woman at all?

"You should have been at party not Ball."

"What?" Lily asked, crossing her arms over her chest. How did this woman know about Tracy's party? What was going on here?

"Should have helped Black family heir." Black family heir? Who was that?

"Excuse me?" Lily asked, uncomfortable with the conversation and the questions and the strange eyes and those moles. Who was this woman?

"The Black family heir: Sirius. His future is tied to your choices." The woman stared at Lily like she was supposed to understand what the crazy woman had just said.

"Sirius? Sirius Black? What? What are you talking about? Who are you?" Lily asked, staring hard at the woman in front of her. Then it happened, just as it had back in August: the woman's eyes flashed orange. But unlike last time, when Lily had seen only a flash of color, this time she could have sworn she saw a dog in those orange eyes. What the hell?

"Tied," the woman repeated softly as she shook her head. Then she turned and began to walk away.

"What," Lily said again, dumbfounded. Not willing to let this woman escape another time, Lily ran to catch up with her and blocked her way. "Who are you?"

"I didn't know," the woman replied, as if that stupid cryptic answer would be enough for Lily. The young redhead extended and hand to put on the woman's shoulder, only to have her hand pass through the other woman. Then the woman disappeared. Disappeared.

"What. The. Hell."

"Lily?" Lily turned and came face to face with Christian Knowles, who looked both sickly and nervous. What? Why was _he_ there?

"Christian?" Lily asked slowly. Were all of her random acquaintances coming out of the wood work today to surprise her with disturbing proclamations?

"Yes." His normally perfect posture was hunched.

"Did you see the creepy woman disappear into the floor like spilled fruit?" Lily asked, turning and looking around the room as if to try and spot the woman. She refused to believe that she could have just disappeared. But people didn't just do that. Sure, the Apparated, but that involved cracking noises and wands. This woman had faded or something.

"Lily, we need to talk. Now," Christine said in his pained voice. She looked back at Christian, her eyes wide with disbelief.

"What is the world is going on in this room?" Lily exclaimed, lifting her hands and holding them out to her sides. "Am I stuck in _A Christmas Story_? Was she the ghost of Christmas future and you're the ghost of Christmas past?"

"Lily Evans!" called the voice at the door.

"Ah! The ghost of Christmas Present, right on time," Lily snapped, wanting to throw something at the person that had called her name.

"I need to talk to you." Christian's eyes were wide and sincere. Lily opened her mouth to reply but was cut off.

"Lily Evans!" the voice called out again.

Lily turned to face the door and yelled, "Now? You want me to come in now? No. Never mind. Of course you do. Of course I should have to speak right at this moment without any explanations because that is how magic works. It's meant to confuse and confound and then destroy the sanity of people, isn't it?"

"Lily, I need to speak to you," Christian repeated.

"Big freaking surprise!" Lily snapped at him, turning toward the door. "But I have to go talk to the Inquisition. Owl me."

"Lily Evans, please come forward," the voice said. She began walking towards it.

"This isn't a matter I can discuss through owls," Christian protested, grabbing Lily's arm to halt her movements.

"Well, too bad," Lily replied, yanking her arm away from him. "You ignored me at the Ball, you didn't reply to my owls during this week when I was freaking out trying to figure out if you were dead, and now that I definitely have to go, you want to talk?"

"I _need_ to talk." Christian set his jaw.

"Well, _I_ need to go answer questions from more imbecilic politicians." With that Lily turned and walked away, not looking back in time to see his crest-fallen expression, not looking back in time to see the way that his shoulders sagged and his head drooped. He looked like a defeated man at that moment and Lily did not even take the time to look back and see it. Instead, she marched toward that loud voice and that stupid Inquisition, grateful to be that much closer to done.

The man at the door barely nodded at her before opening it and letting her in.

She walked through the dark entranceway (what sort of dummy made an entrance dark, anyway?) until she reached a room that was much too big to be her destination. There were rows and rows of people facing her, with three people in the front looking prominent, and there were three rows of people watching the proceedings, also looking at her. She almost turned around and headed back into the lounge, convinced that she had the wrong room, when a voice announced her as, "Lily Evans, witness number thirty-four."

"Please take a seat, Miss Evans," said the woman in the middle of the prominent front trio. She nodded toward a chair in the middle of the room, in-between the rows of people looking at her and the rows of witnesses.

Who did she think she was kidding? Lily was not about to sit there. She had just met with Ian, heard Mrs. Crouch's crazy ideas, seen a woman disappear, and now this power-crazed woman thought she could tell Lily to just sit down? Right! This situation needed a bit more detailing. As the shock of everything that had come to pass -- including seeing Christian so disgruntled -- wore off and the basic freakiness of the situation settled in, Lily became more and more agitated.

"Miss Evans, please sit," the woman said. What would happen if Lily refused? If she just turned and walked away and ignored all future summons?

The person on the left of the trio of people in the front row of the mass of people facing her stood, walked to the end of the row, and proceeded down a set of stairs. Didn't anyone else think it was odd that Lily couldn't see his face because of the poor lighting? If she were Minister she would fire the designer of this room. Twice. And then sue him for damaging the eyesight of all involved parties -- the Inquisition and the witnesses.

A moment later the figure was at Lily's elbow, leading her toward the chair. She was about to rip her arm away when she finally looked at and recognized him. It was Dumbledore, just Dumbledore, the crazy, eccentric, very, very old headmaster of Hogwarts. Good. He was good. He was nice. He wasn't some creepy mole-covered woman ranting about Sirius Black or an ex-boyfriend looking like death walking when he finally decided to grace her with his presence.

"Hello, Headmaster," Lily said, feeling she ought to say something as she let him lead her to the chair.

"Hello, Miss Evans," he replied, pulling out a chair and indicating that she ought to sit there. Once she did, he took the seat beside her.

"Don't you have to sit with them?" Lily whispered, jerking her head toward the masses.

Dumbledore smiled at her. "Not right now." 

"Oh. So you'll sit with me?" Lily asked, annoyed that she cared, annoyed that she was comforted by his presence.

"Yes." Dumbledore nodded.

"The whole time?"

"Yes."

"Okay," Lily replied, shifting in her seat so as to face the Inquisition.

"Please state your name and current place of residence," commanded the woman on the left of the trio. Lily instantly disliked her for her tone.

"Lily Evans, Hogwarts Castle," replied Lily, sitting up straighter and pushing thoughts of the waiting room out of her head. Maybe if she just ignored those memories they would go away.

"And you were a guest of the Knowles family heir at the Crystal Ball?" Knowles family heir? Why heir? Why not just call him Christian, his name?

"Yes." Why all this business about heirs? Why the cryptic messages about Sirius Black, who was apparently an heir himself? Oops. She was supposed to be ignoring those thoughts.

"How did you meet Mister Christian Knowles?" _Sure, now he has a name._

"He spent the summer near my home. We dated for nearly three months," Lily answered, never letting her back touch the chair. She did not want to be comfortable.

"How did he invite you to the Crystal Ball?" asked that same cold, distant voice.

"He visited Hogwarts for my birthday and asked me then."

"Why?"

Lily blinked. "Why what?" 

"Why did he invite you to the Ball?" It sounded like this woman did not enjoy people asking her to clarify herself.

"Why did he invite me?" Lily repeated, disbelieving. "I don't know why he asked me. He probably needed a date."

"And you were the best option?" asked the woman skeptically. Lily's earlier irritation bloomed into a full-blown dislike.

"I don't know. Maybe I was the third best option and the first two turned him down. You ought to ask him," Lily replied, gratified to hear a few appreciative chuckles from the mass of people in front of her.

The questioning became progressively more detailed ("What drink did you order?") and progressively stupider ("Could you recognize any of the Death Eaters?"), but Lily answered as honestly as she could. She even managed to hold back her annoyance and impatience to an extent. The questions were the same that the two officials had asked her, if they were a bit more detailed. She wished she could have given them a transcript of her old answers and skipped this proceeding. Why should they want her to answer them again? Wasn't twice enough? Lily definitely thought it was.

But the questions dragged on and on. As Lily fidgeted, Professor Dumbledore sat quietly beside her, exuding a sense of calm that irritated her. Why was he allowed to be so calm while these people would not stop asking the same annoying questions repeatedly? Why did three different people ask about her shield? No, she did not know what she was thinking when she cast it. No, it was not Mrs. Crouch who cast it, it was definitely her. Yes, she was sure she cast it. Didn't these people ever listen to the answers she gave?

Then the questioning took a turn that was both uncomfortable and unwanted.

"I understand that your wand broke during the Ball," the man who made up the last third of the trio said. And that was another thing that irritated Lily. Why did they insist upon calling it the Ball? Why not call it was it was: an attack?

"Yes, my wand broke during the attack." Lily smirked. Oooh! That irritated them. The entire group seemed to jump.

"Please explain the circumstances." The woman again.

"What do you mean?" Lily asked, suspicious and annoyed as she reached her hand into her robe pocket and fingered the wand she had so recently purchased. Why did her wand matter?

"I would like for you to explain the circumstances that led to the loss of your wand."

"It wasn't lost. After the Death Eaters cursed me, it fell out of my pocket and broke," Lily said, implementing the condescending tones she knew adults, and especially insecure authority figures, hated.

"How exactly did it break?" a man asked in clipped tones, showing his extreme dislike of any mention of Death Eaters. Oh this was too easy.

"I don't know. As I said, one minute I cast a shield to protect myself from flying curses, the next I woke up in the hospital and a Ministry Official was telling me that they burned my wand." Lily left out the extent of her injuries and the fact that her chest felt like it was going to implode every time she took a breath. They didn't need to know that personal information.

"A Ministry Official?" It was the first time a member of the Inquisition's voice sounded surprised.

"Yes," Lily replied slowly.

"Who?"

And for a long moment Lily thought about her answer. The response she should have given was Auror Director Diana Brooks. Instead, in that instinctive place in her soul that had demanded she cast a shield at the Ball, she heard a voice screaming to keep Director Brooks' visit a secret.

"The man who came to speak with me," Lily replied after that brief hesitation, eyes focusing on the dark mass of people in front of her. "I don't remember his name, but I'm sure her remembers."

"Mister Pinfold, do you remember relating this information to Miss Lily Evans?" the man in the trio (that was now a double without Dumbledore) asked.

"No," came a watery voice from behind the trio. "I most certainly do not."

He was there? Well that certainly created a problem.

"Miss Evans, are you sure it was Mister Pinfold?"

"No," Lily replied, her mind scrambling to find a way out of this messy lie. "I don't even remember his name. Everything is blurred together. Maybe it was a nurse that told me. I only really remember going to Diagon Alley with my mother and buying the new wand."

The questioning ended soon after that. Lily had barely spoken for thirty minutes.

Many witnesses passed through the Wizengamot that today -- important people with agendas and prominent family members with reputations to uphold -- and few would remember the testimony of Miss Lily Evans, Muggle-born guest of the Knowles family heir. She was little more than an annoyance to most. Her answers were crudely honest and her injuries far too extensive. People would panic if this girl's story became public knowledge and the Ministry was of the opinion that the Aurors would apprehend Voldemort soon enough, so there was no need to cause public fear.

Luckily, only two people had mentioned Lily Evans in their testimony and the press corps disregarded Lily, so it was clear she was exactly what the Ministry needed her to be: unimportant to the war and easily ignored. Lily was merely a girl that should never have been at the Ball and should not have been questioned.

As she was leaving the Inquisitional room, Lily saw four redheads -- three men and one woman -- sitting in the 'audience' portion of the room. Being one herself, Lily tended to notice redheads, but these four kept her attention for more than their hair color. Specifically, three of their faces kept her attention. While Lily would call the woman adorable and the men charming, the anguish on their faces and the tearstains running down the woman's cheeks were the most noticeable thing about them. In all of the audience, these four people were the only ones sitting next to each other. In fact, three of them looked as though they were relying on one another for the very ability to breathe.

Eyes never leaving them, thinking she knew the answer before it was spoken, Lily asked Headmaster Dumbledore who they were.

"The Prewett's children," Dumbledore replied, sadness in his voice.

And her suspicions were confirmed. Lily had asked the nurse what she knew about the Prewett family while she was at St. Mungo's and been sad to discover the pair had shared three children, though all had left school by that point and two had married.

"Oh," Lily murmured as she walked right past them. But just as soon as she reached the door she stopped. Professor Dumbledore stopped beside her. Neither said a word as Lily turned and walked back over to the three siblings.

The three of them watched her approach with conflicting expressions on their faces: interest and disinterest, annoyance and compliance, but most prevalently they looked sad. Lily stopped in front of them and tried to think of the appropriate words to convey her feelings about what they were going through, but she could not find the words to show that. Instead, she hugged them and whispered words she did not understand: "They did not die in vain."

Never guessing the way their lives would come to touch, the three siblings watched Lily leave and forgot her a moment later. Such was their grief. But the comfort of her hug and the true empathy she expressed stayed with them for years. 

 

**~*~*~**

The train ride back to school was not nearly as uncomfortable as the one to the Ministry. This time, Lily's nerves weren't wound tight and she had no desperate need to cover up the silence with her words. Instead, she just sat and stared out the window, remembering the look in the eyes of the three Prewetts and wishing she could fix it.

"Chocolate, Miss Evans?" Headmaster Dumbledore asked. The sun had long since fallen into the pool at the end of the horizon.

"Yes, please. Thank you," Lily replied, reaching out and taking a piece from his outstretched hand and popping it into her mouth.

"I find it always makes a day better to end it with chocolate," Dumbledore explained, looking fondly at his chocolate.

"I don't know if anything could make this day better," Lily admitted, slumping against the seat.

"Oh?" 

"That was the longest day of my life." Lily looked out the window at the stationary stars in the sky, located Orion, and then looked back at the headmaster, still trying to process all that she had seen. "I ran into all sorts of people I hadn't expected to, drudging up a lot of things I just wanted to forget."

"Forgetting will not lessen the pain," he replied, holding her steady gaze.

"There is no pain." In the darkness outside, the trees blurred as the train zoomed past.

"It is remembering that makes us strong, that leads to change and betterment. Forgetting only allows history to repeat itself." The train moved so quickly that everything except the stars blurred together. Lily briefly wondered if she looked like a blur to someone outside.

"I just can't-- I can't keep telling this story." Lily wrapped her arms around her stomach as she rested her head against the seat cushion. She hated herself for feeling so weak and tired.

"Though I would encourage you to confide in your friends, this Inquisition was the last time you will ever be forced to repeat it," the headmaster said. He caught Lily's eye and she knew (without quite knowing why she knew) that he knew she had lied at during her questioning.

She decided, without really thinking about it, to admit her lie.

"Someone else interviewed me after Mr. Pinfold," Lily said, swallowing the last of the chocolate.

Dumbledore didn't look particularly surprised. "You didn't mention that."

"It didn't feel right to talk about her. I doubt her trip was strictly approved by the Ministry." Lily felt a brief stab of anxiety telling Dumbledore about the private interview.

"And yet you answered her questions?"

"She had more of a right to hear the truth than Mr. Pinfold," Lily said. She knew Mr. Prewett and the Auror Director who had died. She worked with them. What connection did Mr. Sweaty-Grossness claim?

"And even with me you do not feel comfortable revealing her identity?" His blue eyes looked steadily at her.

"It's not that I don't trust you," Lily began, though it partially was. After all, she didn't really know the headmaster. "But I wouldn't tell anyone. If you had spoken with her, you'd understand. You know how the Prewetts looked when we were leaving the Inquisition? That's what she looked like the day she talked to me: destroyed."

"Then she is the person who told you about the deaths of the Prewetts?" Professor Dumbledore asked, and only then did Lily remember that she was not supposed to know about that. In fact, Dumbledore technically wasn't supposed to know about that, though as a member of the Inquisition he must have be briefed about it at least partially.

"Yes," Lily said, "but I haven't told anyone that either, and I won't."

"Why not?"

"Because--" Lily cut herself off. Why wasn't she telling anyone? Was it because the Ministry didn't want her to? No. That wasn't it. "Because it isn't my place to tell anyone."

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "Then did their deaths have no effect on you?"

"Of course they did," Lily said. She wasn't callous, after all. "But that doesn't mean I have a right to announce their deaths."

"You don't?"

"No."

"Then how did their deaths affect you?"

"I'm going to fight for what they died for," Lily said without thinking. Shocked at her own words she met the headmaster's gaze with wide eyes, her right hand in her pocket holding her wand.

"A noble ambition."

"Psh!" Lily said, disagreeing with his comment and waving her hand as if to brush it aside. Mrs. Crouch's words sprung to mind and Lily didn't want to have more than just one person thinking she was noble when she knew she wasn't. "I don't even know what I meant by that. I've probably read that somewhere."

Dumbledore nodded, though Lily could tell that he was coming to his own conclusions behind those intelligent blue eyes.

"Could you tell me what happened in the waiting room?" Dumbledore asked. Lily was overwhelmed briefly as she remembered everyone she had talked that day, and then she shook her head as if to clear her thoughts.

"I couldn't even begin to describe my encounters," Lily said. "I ran into Ian Tailor, my friend from home who was apparently supposed to go to the Ball too, then Mrs. Crouch who just had ridiculous thoughts about the Ball, and then this mole-covered woman who babbled about heirs and disappeared, and then Christian looking just horrible - all the in the span of seven hours or so. I mean, Ian was just--" Lily stopped herself. Ian had said he had learned about Lily's crush on James from Tracy, and that terrified her a bit.

"I heard Mr. Tailor's testimony. I remembered him from his visit to the castle." Dumbledore broke off another piece of chocolate and offered it to Lily. She took it without thinking.

"That's right. I'd forgotten that he came with Christian," Lily said, smiling as she remembered her friend loving her pumpkin costume. Then a thought sobered her and she asked, "Did you hear Mrs. Crouch's testimony?"

"I did."

As Lily sat there trying to think of a clever way to ask if Mrs. Crouch had mentioned her without blatantly asking the question, Dumbledore ate a piece of chocolate.

"Did anyone mention me?" Lily asked, deciding the broad question worked better.

"No one knew who cast it, but many mentioned seeing your shield."

"I wonder why." Thoughts of Mrs. Crouch briefly put aside. "Did I accidentally make it neon pink or something?"

Dumbledore looked amused and sad at one. "As a matter of fact, your shield was the brightest form a shield can take, but no, that is not why they noticed it. They noticed because it was the only shield cast in the room."

"What?" Lily asked, doing a mental double-take. "How did the others protect themselves?"

"They did not." And now the amusement was gone and he looked profoundly sad. The chocolate in his hands looked out of place, even. "Most ran to their Portkey immediately after the Death Eaters appeared."

"But that's so stupid!" Lily protested, sitting up straighter.

"Stupid to run from men intent on attacking them?"

Lily said, "All right. It wasn't stupid, exactly, because my shield did get destroyed rather quickly, but running offers no protection at all."

"Running saved many lives."

"At what cost?" Lily exclaimed. Hearing her voice echo around the small compartment, Lily realized she had been yelling and immediately quieted her voice, though her comments were no less forceful. "They stranded people by taking those Portkeys." The Prewetts and the Auror Director could have survived.

"Is that why you cast the Shield Charm? To save strangers?"

"No!" Lily said, annoyed that everyone kept trying to give her some sort of noble purpose. She was just trying to make a point. "My shield was a reflex."

"Of course," the headmaster said, inclining his head. But Lily had a feeling there was no 'of course' about it. Dumbledore did not seem to believe her.

"Have you spoken with Mrs. Crouch?" Lily asked, suspicious.

"I have. Earlier this week she wrote to ask me of your condition." He said nothing more.

Lily wanted to scream in frustration. Why wouldn't he just tell her if Mrs. Crouch had mentioned that nonsense about a 'Wizard's Debt'? Why couldn't he just answer the questions she did not want to ask?

"It is ironic," Professor Dumbledore began, "that the Shield Charm, which you executed so well, is a prime example of a Defense Against the Dark Arts spell, a class I understand you have no interest in."

"Well, yes, we learned it in Charms, a class I adore," Lily replied off-handedly, mind still trying to find a way to figure out what he knew about Mrs. Crouch.

The train ride passed more quickly than Lily thought possible and soon they were pulling into Hogsmeade and getting into the horseless carriages. The bumpy journey was almost the hardest part for Lily. She was so close to the castle and yet had to wait out this twenty minutes ride. It was painful. Soon, though, the odd pair walked up the night-covered steps to the main doors, and as the doors to the Great Hall opened to reveal an empty castle, the Headmaster addressed Lily.

"Thank you for letting me accompany you today," he said, walking into the main entryway.

"Thank you for coming," Lily replied, surprised to find that she really was grateful.

"My door is always open," he said, and Lily understood that this was her fourth invitation to talk about the events of New Year's Eve. Yet unlike the invitations from the other professors, this one was neither awkward nor uncomfortable. Dumbledore looked Lily in the eye, and she understood why. He, unlike everyone else, had been through an attack of this sort and therefore did not balk at the thought of having a personal acquaintance hurt by Death Eaters. He defeated Grindelwald and lived through that dark age. He understood.

"Thank you," Lily said, smiling a half-smile at him, beyond grateful to know that she wasn't alone, but unable to find the words to express that gratitude.

"Would you like for me walk you back to Gryffindor Tower?" 

"No, thank you. I can find my way."

"All right. I have some business in my office, but Professor McGonagall excused you from your morning Arithmancy class," he commented.

"Oh. That was nice of her." Annoying more like. Why did McGonagall think Lily was made of eggshells? First she excused her from patrol and then the prefect meeting and now class?

"Good night, Miss Evans."

"Good night, Headmaster," Lily said absently, trying not to feel too irritated by McGonagall's actions.

Lily took the long way back to the Tower, avoiding main passages and mentally sorting through the jumble of thoughts cluttering her brain. Why had Mrs. Crouch thought she saved her life? Why had Ian turned down the Ball? Who was that creepy woman? What the hell was wrong with Christian?

Her feet guided her soundly through the corridors, one step after another, until she finally reached the portrait of the Fat Lady. And found the portrait empty. What? Could portraits be empty? Could she get in without the Fat Lady? After tugging on the frame a few times, she found her answer to that question.

Having no other option but to wait out the Fat Lady, Lily sat on the closest set of staircases. Magical schools were confusing.

In her boredom, Lily began to charm the dirt on the ground to spin in circles in the air. Enjoying these parlor tricks, Lily began to conjure fire and write with it the air. That was fun; it was like a magical sparkler. She only wished the words would stay around longer, instead of turning into smoke and drifting away. Maybe if she used a--

"So, you're back, are you?" asked a voice behind Lily, shocking her. She jumped up and spun around to find Gertrude Wrightman descending the stairs. Lily's heart was beating erratically, but she felt better to see a familiar face, even if it was the face of a girl that hated her.

"You scared me," Lily replied. The cold, slow way Gertrude walked freaked Lily out. The Slytherin's ever-present aura of majesty radiated off of her: her movements were graceful and ancient, like she belonged in a castle. Maybe Gertrude was on patrol - she was one of the Slytherin sixth year prefects -- but where was her patrol partner? The glare that Gertrude fixed on Lily when she reached the landing was mildly comforting in that it was the same look she always bestowed upon Lily. _At least some things never change_ , thought Lily.

"You were at the Ministry." Gertrude had blonde hair put up in an elegant bun and no stay pieces. Lily always had stray hairs.

"Uh-huh," said Lily, trying to figure out why Gertrude's voice sounded so strange to her. Hadn't she heard Gertrude's voice in prefect meetings?

"He took a lot out of you," the Slytherin said, and Lily began to think that no, she really had never heard the other girl speak before.

"Who?" asked Lily, distracted, as she wondered why the girl wouldn't have spoken at meetings. And if Lily had never heard her speak before, how did she know with such certainty that the Gertrude hated her?

"The Dark Lord," replied Gertrude.

"What?" asked Lily, focusing her full attention of Gertrude as she was certain she'd misheard her.

"The one who hurt you so much," explained Gertrude.

"Voldemort?" Lily asked. Gertrude's eyes narrowed.

"His name is feared," Gertrude said, though she carefully hadn't claimed that she herself was afraid. Still, Lily stared at the girl, not knowing how to respond without completely berating the girl for fearing a name. "Your whole house is falling apart, Lily."

"What do you mean by that?"

"The house of Gryffindor is splintered."

"We aren't splintered," Lily replied, confused but strangely adamant about this point.

"If you aren't, then you will be soon," Gertrude said, her tiny body looking perfectly natural with her pristine posture. "You ought to really think about which side of this fight you want to be on."

"Listen, Gertrude," Lily snapped, taking a step forward. She was gratified to see the girl step back. "I don't need a shady conversation with you right now. In fact, on my list of 'Shit I Definitely Don't Need to Deal with Tonight,' this is number two. Number one is Voldemort attacking the castle. Explain yourself or leave me alone."

Eyes narrowed, Lily stood staring at the smaller girl for a long time. They looked into each other's eyes from across social barriers, from red house to green, and then they made a bridge.

"Walk with me, Lily," Gertrude said. Of all of the possible reactions to her outburst, Gertrude's real reaction was most surprising. So surprising, in fact, that Lily took her up on the offer. Before she began walking, Gertrude took her wand and pointed it at her prefect badge, lighting it as though she were on patrol. Lily pulled her badge out of her pocket.

"You ought to wear your badge at all times,” Gertrude said, nodding at Lily as she pinned it to her.

"Absolutely not. But thank you for the suggestion," Lily replied, tapping it with her own wand to light it. Gertrude nodded and turned to walk down a set of stairs. Lily paced with her, deciding to not be shocked by anything else that could possibly happen. After all, this wasn't the strangest conversation she'd had today.

The silence that enveloped them was actually comforting. It gave Lily time to let her mind sort through the thousands upon thousands of thoughts racing through her mind. They walked by portraits and doorways, suits of armor and two cats before Gertrude began speaking.

"I don't like you," she said.

"Yeah, I know," Lily replied.

"Why did you speak up for the Slytherins at the December meeting?" Gertrude asked. Lily had to think for a moment to remember which meeting Gertrude was referring to and what she herself had said during it.

"Because Diana the Dufus wouldn't let me not talk," Lily replied honestly, noticing a window near the ceiling. Moonlight poured in through that little window.

"But why Slytherins?" the blonde asked. "Why did you mention our interactions?"

"It makes me sick sometimes," Lily replied, still watching the window as they walked by it. Then she focused on the end of the dim corridor. "I mean the rest of the school treats Slytherins like they are the pre-made villains of everyone's lives and they aren't."

"It's not your concern," Gertrude countered.

"Of course it is," Lily replied, turning her head to look at the smaller girl. "I live here too, and I think it's a stupid stereotype brought about by an archaic sorting system that has never done anything except make enemies of people who might have been friends. It sucks that the other three houses unite to boo you lot on the Quidditch field and cheer when you lose the House Cup. I wasn't about to sit there and listen to Princess Jodie and Idiot Jenna complain about food and first years when there are real concerns plaguing the school."

"Why do you care?" Gertrude sounded suspicious. Lily couldn't bring herself to care.

"Why not?"

"Because it has been this way for a thousand years."

"My friend Sam once told me that Muggle-borns bring change."

"That they certainly do," Gertrude said quite seriously. Actually, everything she said seemed serious and quietly sincere. She turned to Lily, stopped walking, and said, "Do you only talk about equality in order to become Head Girl?"

"No!" Lily exclaimed. "On my list of 'Shit I Never Want to Deal With,' becoming Head Girl is ranked higher than Voldemort attacking the castle."

Lily kept walking and Gertrude was soon beside her. The pair walked to the end of a corridor and made a left until they had circled the entire floor. After they had climbed a few staircases and reached the seventh floor, Lily stopped to take off her shoes and carry them in her hand. Gertrude looked disgusted at the idea, but Lily hardly cared. The shoes she wore hurt her feet and the cold stone floor felt nice against her bare feet.

"To tell you the truth," Lily said, beginning the conversation again, "I always assumed you'd be Head Girl and your partner, whose name I never can remember, would be Head Boy."

"That's interesting," commented Gertrude, though she said no more.

"Well, who else could it be?" Lily asked. "Jodie? Jenna? They're both insane. And the blokes have shown zero desire."

"What about you?"

Lily let out a small bout of laughter. "Have you seen me at meetings? I hardly ever pay attention. The younger students don't respect me. They don't even know who I am except vaguely as the annoying prefect who spoils James Potter's fun. I'm not a leader. Hell, I'm not even nice to most people."

In a portrait of a Quidditch match, the little painted Chaser scored a goal and the quaffle, after shooting through the goal, flew right out of the frame and into a painting of lily pond.

"I must admit," Gertrude said, her mouth set in a line, "that you are exactly as I imagined you would be."

"That sucks. I was hoping to be amazingly different. Then we could have become secret best friends and formed the type of inter-house bond that everyone else seems to fear," Lily quipped, not sure herself if she was joking.

"We will never be friends."

"No. I suppose we won't be," Lily replied. Gertrude's shoes clicked pleasantly against the stone floor as Lily's feet slapped alongside.

"Maybe we can be something else," Gertrude said.

"Well, doesn't that just reek of innuendo," Lily replied jokingly. "Sorry to disappoint, Gertrude, but I'm not interested in women."

Gertrude simply looked at Lily. When their eyes met, Lily cast her eyes downward.

"Right. Sorry. Poor joke," Lily muttered.

"I meant that we might find away to inspire one another," Gertrude said, ignoring Lily's comment.

"I don't understand." Despite herself, Lily was intensely curious.

"I would like for you to convince me that fighting the Dark Lord isn't stupid, that I might be able to achieve great ends by fighting with you. In return, I will convince you that you're right about Slytherins; that we're not all evil, that your work is worthwhile."

Lily looked at this girl who was as close to an enemy as she had. She looked at this regal woman of sixteen, whose hair was blonde and ever so controlled. She looked at the way she walked and suspected that if she put a book on her head, Gertrude could keep it up there as long as she wanted to.

"Why me?" Lily finally asked, not really admitting that she understood what Gertrude was talking about.

"You understand the true danger," Gertrude answered, and Lily looked down at her bare toes.

Her chest hurt from just this little walk. In her left hand she held the shoes her mother had sent her to replace the ones she had lost at the Ball and in her right hand she held the wand that the Death Eaters had as much as forced her to buy. While she hated to admit it and would never do so aloud, Lily felt a little broken. And she hated that feeling.

"My friends think Voldemort will be caught soon," Lily said, unsure why she mentioned that to someone who admitted to disliking her and would probably use this vulnerability against her if she could. And yet Lily felt more comfortable talking with this girl than talking to any of her best friends.

"You know differently."

"He ran from the Aurors," Lily replied, more because it was true than because she actually believed it proved anything about him. Lily had to admit that she held little to no hope that Voldemort would be caught any time soon. By anyone.

"Yet the Aurors did not catch even one of his followers," Gertrude said, and Lily remembered that she had been shocked and upset when Director Brooks first told her this information. What had changed since then that Lily now accepted this information without much feeling?

"So why do you want me to convince you to join the Aurors's side?"

"I don't. I want you to convince me to join your side, which I suspect will eventually be Dumbledore's side, though I make no presumptions."

Well, wasn't Gertrude just full of surprises? She didn't automatically assume Lily would side with Dumbledore in this fight? Lily couldn't believe that. She was a Muggle-born. What other side would she take? Actually, Lily couldn't quite believe that she was even acknowledging that a battle coming. When had she accepted that fact? But she knew the answer to that. She had accepted that fact the moment she looked into the eyes of the three Prewetts and when she realized the Ministry would never be able to capture Voldemort.

"I’m not in the best head space to convince anyone of anything," Lily said as the pair passed a statue of a gargoyle. 

"On your worst day, you first instinct was to cast a shield."

"I didn't mean to." Why did everyone care about that stupid thing?

"I never said you meant to," countered Gertrude. "I don't care what you meant to do. You cast a shield as a reflex, and it's always good to have an ally with that reflex. That means their first instinct is to protect, and I want to join the side that would look out for me."

"But you don't even like me."

"Fortunately, you don't have to like someone in order to fight beside them. You only have to share a common belief, if only for a moment," Gertrude said. The creaking movements of a statue made both girls turn around in time to see to black haired figures immerge from the shadows behind the statue of the gargoyle.

Lily lifted her wand -- the one that would let her fight in the upcoming battle — and shone light on the two figures. James Potter and Sirius Black both raised a hand to block her light from hitting their eyes. Lily mentally shook her head. Of course. Because her day would not have been complete before she ran across _all_ of the people who could manage to make her feel small.

"Go back and help put together your splintered house," Gertrude whispered, capturing Lily's attention. "And convince me."

The blonde girl turned and walked off in perfect balance, a dancers poise, putting out the light of her badge a few steps past, dropping into darkness. Lily turned toward the blokes who remained still outside the statue of the gargoyle, who only then seemed to have notice her presence. They probably hadn't even seen Gertrude, Lily realized as she walked up to them.

She took in the image of James Potter and Sirius Black, lingering on the latter and wondering if the orange-eyed lady knew what she was talking about, wondering if Sirius Black's fate tied to her. Both boys had a hollow look in their eyes, mingled guilt and regret. Once upon a time, Lily reflected, she would have been please to see them look so humbled. As it was, she could only wonder if maybe she had a similar look in her own eyes.

"Heading back to the common room?" Lily asked, too tired to be anything less than blunt. She had zero desire to discuss what had just transpired between her and Gertrude. Zero desire to think about all of the people she had seen and talked to that day.

"Yes," said James .

"Then for tonight," Lily replied, emotionally exhausted and desperate to have a normal conversation, "let's walk there together and pretend like we are simply strangers, instead of almost-enemies."

"Aren't you on duty?" James asked, eyeing her badge. Lily reached up and took it off, extinguishing the light and pocketing it.

"No. I'm not."

"You're supposed to report us," James pressed. Still no one moved and Sirius Black did not open his mouth.

"Yes," Lily said. Did he want her to? Well, tough. She wasn't about to have to explain to anyone what _she_ was doing wandering the corridors. The three stood there looking at one another, the three whose lives would become so intertwined that none could separate them. And though it took a moment, James finally nodded his head, accepting Lily's offer, and the three turned back to the common room together.

The Fat Lady had returned by the time they reached her, though she was very drunk, splashing her drink everywhere as she opened. Sirius went up to his dorm like a blur, leaving James and Lily together. Lily didn't say a word before she moved toward her own dorm.

"It's really decent of you to keep this quiet," James said, stopping her in her tracks. When was James Potter ever gracious? She turned to address him, though she kept walking backward.

"Decent nothing," Lily said, gesturing as if to wave the words away. "I'm so tired my face hurts."

"You probably want to know where we were."

"That's your business. Not mine," Lily replied, reaching the door to the girl's wing and holding the handle in her hand.

"You're not curious?"

"Of course I'm curious, but as I said: I'm tired. In fact, my bed sounds so inviting that even my excessive curiosity regarding your whereabouts cannot combat my need for sleep." Lily turned around, pulled the handle, and swung open the door.

"We weren't doing anything wrong," James called out.

"I don't care," Lily replied, walking through her door and shutting it behind her.

The idea of sleeping did sound fantastic, but unfortunately it would not happened for hours and hours. Not until twenty feet of parchment had been filled with words and wishes and dreams and strange encounters with barely-acquaintances. When she woke the next day, Lily would find, to her dismay, that there were even a few hearts with J.P. written in them. 

 


	15. The Misunderstandings of Students

Waking up Monday morning felt like fighting her way out of a swamp. Lily even considered using Professor McGonagall's "free skip," but ended up deciding that doing so would just draw more unwanted attention. So she sat up in bed and looked blearily around the room, hating her friends for being able to sleep because they had no morning class.

She took the longest shower in history, brushed her teeth, stared uselessly at herself in mirror for a good minute trying to convince herself to move faster, changed, and then left her dormitory for breakfast.

"Lily!" called a voice as Lily entered the common room. She cast her eyes around the room and spotted Remus walking up to her. If he so much as breathed incorrectly, even her half-awake mind realized she might banish him across the school.

"Hello, Remus.” Lily chose not to stop and wait for him. If he wanted to talk he could follow her down to breakfast.

"We need to talk about the prefect meeting last night," he said. She pushed open the portrait and walked out.

"Why?" Lily asked, turning left down the corridor.

"Because-- er--" He couldn't even complete a whole sentence without stumbling over his words. Didn't Matt think he was a werewolf or some nonsense like that?

"Because why?" Lily prompted, sliding aside a panel in the wall that led to her favorite secret passageway.

"Oh. It’s... when did you find this passage?" Remus said, changing his own subject.

"Second year." The torches lit themselves as they moved through the passage.

"Second year?"

"Yes." Lily stifled a yawn as she reached the steep, spiraling staircase that led to the kitchen's back entrance. "I'm sorry. Why did we need to talk?"

"Oh, right." Remus was too busy looking at the stairs and the portraits to pay any attention. It was as if he'd never been in this passage before. But that wasn't possible. It opened only two corridors from Gryffindor tower. Didn't everyone know about it?

"Something about the meeting I missed," Lily prompted. "When did you get back, by the way?"

"Yesterday afternoon."

Then Lily must not have seen him in the Hospital Wing. Well, that was a relief. At least he wouldn't be asking her any uncomfortable questions.

"What kept you?"

"Family. How long is this staircase?"

"Not much longer," Lily said, too tired to press for details about his family. Lily had lain in bed for hours without rest, running over the various conversations she'd had the day before, and she held no great desire to consume more information.

"And this goes to the Great Hall?"

"No. It goes to the back entrance of the kitchens."

"Really?" Maybe he had never found this passage. How strange. Didn't everyone search the castle? Maybe he and his friends just didn't go in for that sort of thing. But then, hadn't she found them in that room after hours last year, during the Game?

"Do you not like to use secret passages?" Lily asked.

"Oh. Er." That was much more like the Remus she knew and patrolled with: inarticulate, awkward, and unable to answer simple questions. Okay. Maybe the sleep deprivation made her a little harsh, but honestly, she'd never seen him speak so avidly as he had during this small dialogue.

"Prefect meeting," Lily reminded him as they reached the bottom of the stairs and a black wall.

"Right. Well, the Hufflepuff sixth years and the Slytherin fifth years were both caught by Filch snogging during their patrols."

"What.”

"They were caught on different days--"

"I wasn't disturbed by the logistics of it. I was disturbed by the imagery. Can you imagine Jenna kissing anyone?" Lily shuddered. Then she smiled. "She must be so angry at being caught. She'll think it'll compromise her chances at Head Girl."

"It could.”

"Who cares?" Lily drew a happy face on the wall with her wand, and watched it disappear. Lily had to go back, grab Remus’s hand, and pull him forward.

"What was that you just did?"

"I opened the door," Lily replied, deciding to be childish and not tell him how to do it.

The house-elves made short work of breakfast, bringing Lily a bagel with jam and Remus a bowl of oatmeal. They eyed each other, realizing that the other person must come very often to the kitchens if the house-elves knew what to bring them without asking.

"So, that's why you followed me down here, to gossip about the other prefects?" Lily asked, taking a bite out of her bagel as she walked toward the front exit. It was closer to her Arithmancy classroom.

"No," Remus said, holding his oatmeal bowl in one hand and his spoon with the other. "Those pairs were banned from patrolling, so everyone else has to take two additional patrols, and some have to take three more a month since the extra patrols are split between only the remaining sixth years." Lily stopped eating and turned to look at Remus Lupin.

"If you tell me that you signed us up for three more shifts a month, I will kill you," Lily said clearly. His sheepish and apprehensive look was enough of a response. Lily marched out of the portrait.

"It's only five nights a month since we had less normal already," he continued, following her.

"Five nights a month!" Lily yelled, still walking toward her class. "Are you joking? Are you even _there_ during our patrols? Not only are they useless, they're boring! Horribly, horribly boring! We don't even talk. And you signed me up for three more nights of that? I just-- I can't even fathom your reasoning."

"Well--" He tried to interrupt, but Lily wouldn't let him.

"If anything, _we_ should snog and end the torture!"

Color jumped onto Remus's cheeks and his eyes darted over Lily's shoulder. She turned to follow his gaze and found herself looking at James Potter, who was just staring at them with a blank face, about to go into the Arithmancy classroom.

"And now," Lily muttered to herself, "my morning is truly complete."

"Hey, Remus," James said, nodding at his friend.

"We'll talk tomorrow, Remus," Lily said, turning to go into her classroom.

Remus winced. "Actually, we have a patrol tonight."

"Joy," Lily said with false enthusiasm, walking into her class and slamming her bag down on the desk she normally shared with Kevin Creggie, the Ravenclaw prefect in her year. He looked at her with wide eyes.

"You okay?" he asked.

"What the hell happened at that meeting last night? Hormones gone awry?" Lily asked, sitting and yanking out with quill and ink

"Something like that," Kevin said. "Jenna's furious."

"I'm furious. I'm the one who has to take three extra patrolling shifts to pick up her slack."

"We have to take two."

"And _I_ have to take three."

"What's so wrong with that? Your partner seems like a good enough bloke. Remus, right? One of that group of Gryffindors that charmed the Great Hall ceiling to make real rain last year." Kevin's boyishly sincere smile almost lightened her mood.

"Yes, it's Remus. And the problem isn't that he's a bad person. The problem is that he's a mute. He never speaks."

"We should switch," Kevin said. "I'd like some peace and quiet. Jodie's a nutcase on patrol. She disillusions herself and ducks behind statues like she's an Auror and then tackles passing students. I try to warn them, but some don't catch on fast enough. First years are terrified of her. Hell, I'm terrified of her."

"All right class, let's begin," the professor said. Lily and Kevin turned toward the front, but Lily couldn't stop thinking about what Kevin had said. It was true; Remus wasn't a horrible partner. In fact, this morning he'd been rather talkative. Maybe she just needed to say something to interest him.

"Today we'll be working with the variations of the annual calendar and discussing the importance of Mayan dating," the professor continued, pointing to the board, where a picture of some old stone ruins appeared. "The Mayans created one of only four original written languages in the history of the world, and had the concept of zero. Does anyone remember anything else of interest about the Mayans?"

Lily craned her head around to spot James, but when she did, she found that he was staring at her. Geez! She spun back around to face forward, hating her heart for speeding up and her cheeks for flushing. Traitors.

And Lily hated that she wanted to know why he wasn't raising his hand. She hated that she actually (in that place in her mind that she wanted to cut out and throw away) found James's intelligence attractive. So then why wasn't he answering the question? Why, instead, was he staring at her with such intensity that she could feel it on her neck and she blushed even more?

Slowly -- not quite knowing why she was doing it -- she raised her hand.

"Miss Evans, do you have an interesting fact?" the professor asked, excitement evident in his voice.

"The Mayans were talented astronomers," Lily said, and then she explained the history that she had learned from Professor Sinistra: about their technological advances and calendars that ran in cycles. Lily finished, "Actually, they predicted the end of the world to take place December 24th, 2012."

"Very good, Miss Evans, and very accurate. Because of their ability with astronomy, they created a calendar that varies only slight from modern ones."

As the class dragged on, Lily kept stealing glances at James and kept hating herself for feeling disappointed when she found his intense stare not directed at her. What was wrong with her? Hadn't she promised herself that she would stop-- oh toss it! She wasn't mad at him. She'd forgiven him long before she meant to. It was hard to see the grief of the Prewetts and still believe that anything, when compared with the actions of Voldemort, worthy of real anger.

Anyway, she still liked James. Stupid pratt that he was. She was infatuated, and it irked her that she had loved walking back to the common room in silence beside him. In fact, the conversation she'd had with him (even if it had been very, very brief) probably marked the longest, most decent conversation that they'd ever had. She decided to quit beating herself up about her crush and just to revel in it. Thus she returned to daydreaming about him in order to distract herself from thoughts of the Inquisition or the people she'd run into there. 

**~*~*~**

"So, I hear you verbally assaulted Remus Lupin this morning," Sam said the moment Lily left the Arithmancy classroom. The began walking toward Potions.

"Sort of. Just kind of blew up at the poor bloke. Ought to apologize," Lily said, too used to Sam picking her up from class to be disturbed by starting a conversation so quickly.

"Did he ask you about the your Ministry trip?"

"No," Lily said. James Potter pushed past the girls then and Lily let herself stare at his retreating back, enjoying admitting that she liked him even as she hated herself for being so weak.

"I guess you're back to obsessing again?" Sam asked, catching Lily's stare.

"It's not like I want to. I just can't help it," Lily said, shrugging and nodded subtly toward him. "Look at him. How can you not like him?"

"With relative ease, actually," Sam replied, adjusting her hold on her books.

"Thanks for the support."

"Sickle if you kiss him right now."

"Sickle if you fall off the North Tower," Lily countered, watching James turn a corner and pass out of sight.

"Grouchy much?"

"No. I'm just reveling in being honest with myself again." Lily pulled on the arm of a suit of armor and walked into the passageway that was revealed.

"Anyway, why did you attack Remus?" Sam asked, following.

"Oh. That. He signed us up for three more patrol nights a month."

"Ew. Why?"

"Because those idiot prefects in Slytherin and Hufflepuff couldn't keep their hands off one another for four bloody hours and got their patrols taken away."

"Ha!" Sam covered her mouth with her hand, but Lily could see that she was smiling. Lily shook her head.

"No. Not funny. It means more silent, boring, long nights walking up and down the corridors as I ruin other people's fun. You know what I have become? I've become the person we run from during the Game," Lily moaned.

"Tracy would freak out if she heard you talking about that in a corridor," Sam said, turning left to leave their side passage and rejoin the main one that was crammed full of students.

"Tracy doesn't freak out about anything."

"Which Tracy are _you_ talking about?" Sam asked as they reached the set of stairs that led to the dungeons.

"Tracy, the beater who is one of the most relaxed people that I've ever met," Lily said, placing a hand on the railing.

"No. I don't know a Tracy like that. Maybe you're thinking of someone by another name that you have confused with Tracy McGrath," Sam said, and Lily wasn't sure if she was kidding or not.

"Maybe," Lily said, shrugging because she did not want to disagree with Sam right then.

"Anyway, how did the Ministry thing go?"

"You know that twenty feet of parchment you gave me?" Lily asked. Sam nodded as the two reached the door to the Potions room. "It's full."

"What? How? Didn't you leave that here when you left?" Sam asked, opening the door. Lily nodded and ducked under her friend's arm to enter the classroom.

"And I stayed up all last night writing on it," Lily said. "Now it's full."

"I'm guessing your weekend was eventful then?"

"Like you wouldn't believe." The two sat together at the table in the middle left of the room.

"What happened?" Sam asked.

"I'll tell you later, but it involves running into Christian, Ian, Cordelia Crouch, a mole covered German, and Gertrude Wrightman," Lily said, seeing the stout Professor enter at that moment. She knew they would be able to speak of nothing but their assignment for the duration of the class.

"Cauldrons out."

 

 

**~*~*~**

Tracy did not sit by Lily at lunch. In fact, she sat almost twenty seats away, speaking with James Potter in hushed tones as Lily played with the food in front of her and pretended not to care.

"And then Gertrude left?" Sam asked.

"Yep." Lily felt a vague sense of guilt wash over her as she lied to her best friend, but Lily had definitely edited her trip to the Ministry in her retelling. She had mentioned nothing of the mole-woman who spoke about Sirius Black or Cordelia Crouch talking about a Wizarding Debt. She also left out the bit about Gertrude and her walking together and the challenge that the other sixteen year old had given her. Oh. And she had omitted the Prewetts. Sam wasn't ready.

"So do you know what Ian was talking about? How did he know about James?" Lily asked, deciding to focus on what was probably the most self-involved and trivial aspect of the previous day.

"About you obsessing over the boy?" Sam asked, lowering her voice. James was always referred to as 'the boy' when they were where someone might overhear them.

"Exactly." Lily dragged her eyes away from James and Tracy at the end of the table and looked at Sam.

"He doesn't know about that," Sam said, eating a spoonful of soup.

"How can you be sure?"

"Because I haven't said anything to anyone. You definitely haven't said anything to anyone. No one else knows." Now, if Lily were the skeptical type, she would think that Sam was lying to her. She would suspect that her friend slipped up and was trying desperately to cover her own tracks. Then Lily would probably leap across the table and pour that bowl of soup over Sam's head. Fortunately for both girls (and their sanity) Lily was not the suspicious type.

"He mentioned Tracy." Lily glanced back to the table.

"I haven't told a soul," Sam said, and it bothered Lily that she believed Sam so implicitly because that led to all sorts of uncomfortable questions.

"So what was Ian talking about? What did Tracy say to him?"

"I couldn't tell you for certain." Sam put her spoon down and crossed her hands on her lap.

"You know something," Lily accused, her green eyes lighting up.

"No," Sam said. "I suspect something."

"Suspect with me." Lily pointed to herself with both hands.

"Can't."

"Why not?" Lily whined, hands falling back onto the table.

"Girl Rules."

"Arg!" Lily exclaimed, causing a few people to look over. "Why did it have to be Girl Rules. Anything else could be countered."

"I'm glad you acknowledge my situation.”

"Shut it," Lily snapped. "That just means that Tracy-- well, actually, I have no idea what that means, except that I can't pry the information out of you." Lily stood quickly, leaving her barely touched meal.

"Where are you going?" asked Sam, looking up at Lily with her dark brown eyes.

"I'm going to Hogsmeade," Lily decided. "Want to come?"

"And skive off class?" Sam asked, shaking her head.

"Why not?"

"Can't do it. Sorry. I don't skive off. You know that."

"And I've told you since second year that you are seriously hampering our friendship by refusing to bond with me through breaking rules." Lily looked around the room for another companion.

"I race around this castle in the middle of night, just like the rest of you," Sam said with a dismissive hand motion. "Let that be enough."

"Fine, boring bunny. I have other friends, you know."

"No, you don't," Sam said, smirking. Lily made a face at her and then walked down the table and tapped Tracy on the shoulder, causing her to cut off her conversation with James abruptly and face Lily.

"Come to Hogsmeade with me. Now," Lily commanded. She tried to ignore James Potter's mouth falling open.

"Sorry, Lily," Tracy said. "I can't."

"You have to. Christine is missing -- I think she's somewhere snogging some Ravenclaw -- and Sam refuses to blow off class. You're my last chance."

"I can't, and neither can you."

"I can and I _really_ want to," Lily said, sitting backward on the bench next to Tracy. "I want to go build snowmen, yell obnoxious things at people passing by, maybe light something on fire, and just generally be those teenagers that the villagers hate."

"We have a Transfiguration revision session," Tracy said.

"What? Why?" Lily moaned, leaning her head against Tracy's shoulder and wanting to cry, though she couldn't really explain why she felt so emotional about not being able to go to the village.

"Because Professor McGonagall hates us," Tracy said, patting Lily on the head.

"Fine," Lily consented, slumping and resting her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. "But later you're going to answer one or two questions I have for you."

"About what?" Tracy asked. She looked so innocent that Lily almost second guessed herself for thinking she had spoken with Ian about James Potter and herself. But then she remembered what Ian said and she felt right again.

"About Ian," Lily replied, feeling rebellious mentioning this in front of James himself.

"What about Ian?" Tracy replied. If Lily hadn't seen the way her friend paled two shades, she might have believed her innocent tone.

"Oh. I think you know," Lily replied, still watching for signs of guilt. "I ran into him yesterday

"Did he visit?" James asked. Lily resisted the urge to look at him as she started to see Tracy's shifting in her seat.

"Not exactly," Tracy replied, answering for Lily.

"Well, where did she run into him?" James asked.

"The Ministry," Lily replied, kind of enjoying making Tracy so obviously uncomfortable. "I was summoned for an Inquisition and so was he."

"Wasn't yesterday the day of the Ball Inqui--" James stopped himself and this time Lily did look over and literally saw him putting the pieces together in his mind.

"You didn't know?" Lily was surprised. Didn't the whole school know? Lily wanted to mentally slap herself. How arrogant could she have been to assume that everyone knew? Friday she had hoped that no one knew.

"He's had other things to worry about," piped a voice across the table. Lily had to shift her position in order to get a good look at a defiant-looking Peter Pettigrew. His tone suggested that he thought she ought to know what he was talking about.

"I didn't mean he ought to have known where I was, I was just asking," Lily lied, inexplicably defensive in the fact of Peter's tone. She barely knew him. In fact, this may have been their first conversation since first year, when Lily had spoken to everyone.

"Well, you were there at Tracy's party." Peter obviously hadn't put two and two together like James. "You ought to know that he--"

"Lily!" exclaimed Tracy, standing and interrupting Lily just as she was about to ask Peter what he'd meant. "I left my Transfiguration things in the dorm. Come get them with me." With that, she grabbed Lily's arm and pulled her away from the potentially interesting conversation she might have had with Peter Pettigrew. 

 

 

**~*~*~**

At the beginning of the Transfiguration class, Professor McGonagall took Lily into the corridor and told her that Lily was excused.

"It's all right, Professor. I'll help revise," Lily protested. She knew she wouldn't do very well, but she'd never heard of anyone taking an exam late in McGonagall's class. She didn't want to be the first.

"You will meet with me Wednesday during your free period in the afternoon to practice," McGonagall commanded. Her tone left no room for negotiations, but Lily tried anyway.

"I don't want an unfair advantage."

"Advantage? Miss Evans, you were in hospital and missed the lessons we're covering. You will meet with me today and tomorrow at four to learn the material." With an impressive sweep of her robes, the Deputy Headmistress turned and marched back into her classroom.

"Argh!" Lily yelled, frustrated. Her frustration grew after her yell caused a sharp pain in her chest. She hadn't even wanted to come to class today, and now this was what she had to deal with? That was ridiculous. Stomping her feet in a decidedly childish fashion, Lily found herself heading toward the kitchens and an ice cream sundae.

"Lily!" called a voice behind her, causing her to spin around. Oddly enough, her hand sought out her wand on reflex. Trying to ignore the fear (and again that chest pain) that had coursed through her for a moment, Lily smiled as she recognized Christine running up to her, two books in her arms, a bag slung precariously over one shoulder, and a huge grin on her face.

"Don't you have class, Christine?" Lily asked, pocketing the wand, ashamed of pointing it at a friend.

"I have a note from Pomfrey excusing me. Basically, I am amazing," Christine said, shifting to get a better grip on her things.

"McGonagall doesn't let people just miss class. You'll take a zero."

"I'll do really well on my practice N.E.W.T.s and she'll forgive me," Christine said. "I heard you wanted to go to Hogsmeade. Let's go."

"Christine, I love you!" Lily yelled, jumping forward and embracing her friend. Christine laughed and hugged her back, though her books and bag ended up on the ground. Lily quickly scooped them up, shoved the books into the bag, and handed it back to Christine. She ignored the pain in her ribs. It was fainter anyway.

"Ready to go?" Christine asked.

"Don't you have to put your things away?"

"No. I'll leave them by the Great Hall," Christine said as she began heading in that direction. "We have to go pick up Matt."

"Matt? Matt, as in Tracy's brother Matt?"

"Yes."

"The Head Boy?" Lily pressed, knowing that occasionally a person had to ask Christine a question the or four times in order to be sure that she understood it. Sometimes, she lived in her own little world.

"Yes, Lily. I know what I'm talking about," Christine replied.

"Okay." And so the pair walked down the stairs, Lily's giddy feeling of freedom adding an extra (sometimes painful) bounce to her step. Christine put her things down on the floor next to the Great Hall and Lily did the same, though she found a somewhat hidden chair. Soon they walked out into the cold, wrapping their winter cloaks tighter, as they marched toward the Care of Magical Creatures area.

"Christine, is he in class?" Lily whispered as they drew near a group of seventh years being taught by that professor with three fingers on his left hand.

"Yeah," Christine replied in a tone that obviously suggested this shouldn't be a problem.

"You're going to ask him to cut class in front of the professor?" 

"No. I'm going to lie." Christine smiled.

 _Oh. Well. Fine then,_ Lily thought. But honestly, it _was_ fine. What Christine lacked in deceit, she made up for in stubborn. She'd lie to your face so many times you had to give up fighting or go mad.

So Lily walked on, smiling a tight smile as the students turned to look at the two approaching sixth years. In the group she saw many people she recognized: a few prefects (including the Slytherin she remembered from the end of the year train ride party, who looked rather disgruntled about something), not a few Gryffindors, and Professor Kettleburn whom she only vaguely recognized because of his missing right arm. Lily hung back around the fringe of the group as Christine walked through the group and to the professor, Matt waved to Lily and gave her a questioning look, indicating Christine with his head. Lily shrugged and smirked, unable to hide her excitement about going to town.

"Matt McGrath," the professor summoned. The Head Boy glanced at Lily again, before talking to his professor and then jogging back to pick up his bags and things. Then Christine and he walked over to Lily. The three of them headed back up to the castle.

"What happened to her?" Matt asked.

"Who?" Lily asked.

"Tracy," Matt replied. Seeing Lily's blank look her turned to half-glare at Christine. In warning tones he began, "Stumpy."

"Yes, Matt?" Christine asked, not even looking at him.

"You said I needed to go to the hospital wing in order to check on Tracy." Matt was almost smiling, despite his tone.

"True." Christine still did not look at him.

"She's not in the Hospital Wing, is she?" 

"No, but you didn't want to stay in class."

"Well, I certainly didn't want to be needlessly worried about my sister. Besides, I did want to stay in class. We were revising." Matt was obviously a nerd like Lily.

"It's cold," Christine said, as if that ought to have been enough reason for him to want to leave class. Lily snickered, still happy to be leaving campus.

Matt turned to look at the snickering Lily and said, "I _know_ this wasn't your idea, was it, Lily?"

"Matt," Lily admonished, her voice full of shock, "I'm shocked that you could think such a thing. I'm a prefect—"

"And top of every class," Christine added.

"No, not that," Lily corrected, shooting her friend a strange look. The three students entered the castle at that point, put Matt's bags on top of Christine's, and headed up to the forth floor mirror that would move aside and let them travel to the town.

"Some classes," Christine countered.

"Not a single one," Lily inserted, shaking her head and loving the way her ponytail swished.

"Most classes," Christine said, turning to Matt. "Lily is the top student in our year."

"Is that true?" Matt asked, obviously not caring about the change in conversation.

"No," Lily replied when they reached the staircase that moved like an escalator with a simple 'please.'

"Liar," Christine chirped.

"I'm not top student," Lily said, holding the railing when the staircase detached itself and helpfully raised a couple of floors so that they were closer to their destination. "Don't you think I would know if I were?"

"No. Wait," Christine said, looking terribly confused and stubborn. "You are. I promise."

"I'm not." Lily was relieved to see the stairs attached before they reached the top.

"Then who is?" Christine sounded triumphant, like she'd proved her point.

"I don't know, but it's certainly not me," Lily replied. She looked at Matt and gave him a self-deprecating smile, "I failed out of Defense, that's what kind of a student I am."

"Wait." Christine shook her head as the three stepped in the fourth floor corridor. "You did not fail out of Defense."

"Yes, I did," Lily replied, laughing. She had always been bad at Defense. Her friend knew from the Game, didn't she? "I received a 'T,'" Lily said, laughing at her own failings. "That isn't even supposed to be possible."

"Well. Maybe--" Christine didn't finish her thought.

"How'd you do on the written part?" Matt asked.

"Better than a T, but not enough." Lily shrugged. 

"No. Wait. You _are_ the top student in our year," Christine protested. "I promise. Tracy told me."

"Even if I were, which I'm not," Lily said as they reached the mirror and each made a horrible face at it, causing it to disappear, "I'm not going to be after the Transfiguration exam."

Her comment failed to derail either of her conversation partners. Christine walked down the passageway muttering to herself about Lily's marks. Matt and Lily followed at a little bit of a distance.

Then Matt said with a smile, "I think you received an O on the written part, and nearly every other O.W.L. that you took."

"What?" Lily exclaimed, catching her foot on the bottom of the mirror and nearly falling to the ground. When she balanced herself again, she turned and looked at Matt.

"Don't worry," he said, his smile still lighting up his entire face. Lily briefly realized how good-looking he really was. "Your secret's safe with me."

"I'm not top student," Lily protested.

"Sure," Matt said, winking.

Lily stomped her foot. "No. Really—"

"Hurry up, you two!" called Christine from somewhere in front of them in the long, dark passage. The two quickened their paces.

"The one time those stupid badges could have come in handy, I left mine in my room," Lily complained.

"Lumos," Matt whispered as the pair caught up with Christine.

"Well, sure. I could have done that," Lily said primly, "but I prefer not to cheat."

"Cheat?" Matt repeated.

"That's right. You're a cheater, using magic to actually make things easier. Who does that?" Lily asked. Matt laughed.

"I want a butterbeer," Christine announced.

"I suppose you're looking at me for a reason?" Matt asked.

"Well, you're buying it for me," she explained.

"Of course," Matt replied, smiling. Lily watched them walk together and was struck by their similarities. Both blonde, both tall, both with half smiles on their faces. Their actual features were distinctively different, Matt's dull blue eyes very different than Christine's brown ones, his smile markedly smaller than hers, which seemed to take up her entire face. They'd known each other since Christine was nine, practically grown up together.

"Lily?" Matt asked. It occurred to Lily that they had been talking and she hadn't been listening.

"Sorry, what were you saying?" Lily asked.

"Some top student you are," muttered Christine. Before Lily could respond, Matt cut in.

"What do you think about James Potter?" Matt asked. Lily almost stopped walking, so surprised was she by the change in subject.

"Excuse me?"

"James Potter. What do you think about him?" Matt asked again.

"I don't know. I don't know him very well," Lily said. _I'm just obsessed with him and everything he does._ "Why?"

"He and Tracy have been spending a lot of time together is all. Just wondering." How adorable. Matt was worried about his sister and the types of-- Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Why was Matt worrying about James Potter and Tracy? Unless-

"Do you think they're dating?" Lily asked.

"I was just wondering," Matt replied, neither affirming nor denying her suspicions.

"They aren't dating," Christine announced. But with Matt's question on her mind, Lily was not inclined to believe Christine.

"Anyway, how many more patrols did you pick up?" Matt asked, mentioning the one and only thing that could have bothered Lily more than the idea that one of her best friends was dating James Potter.

"Three!" Lily answered.

"Sorry about that. Diana insisted that the extra patrols all be covered by the sixth years, since the seventh and fifth years have important exams.

"I'm pretty sure I strongly dislike that girl," Lily said vehemently.

"Strongly dislike?" Matt repeated, smiling again. "You don't hate her?"

"No. Hate is too strong a word. I don't think I--" Lily cut herself off. She used to tell people that she did not hate anyone, but was that true anymore? Didn't she hate the men that had attacked the Ball? Didn't she hate Voldemort?

"You don't think what?" Christine asked. "Don't cut yourself off in the middle. That's annoying." But, further considering her feelings, Lily realized she did not hate those Death Eaters or even Voldemort.

"I don't think I hate anyone," Lily finished. No, she only felt terribly sad for those men and women who killed without conscience because that was such a horrible way to live. She was angry and sad and hurting a lot, but she did not hate them. Hating them would make her like them, and she would never submit to becoming like them in any way.

"You okay, Lily?" Matt asked.

"Yeah. I'm fine," Lily replied, smiling as she pushed those dark thoughts away. She was going to town to forget those things, and she would, for that moment, because she knew her ability to ignore the outside world would not last much longer.

And so the three teenagers headed into the magical city adjacent to Hogwarts castle and the day passed quickly. They built snowmen, snow angels, and a large snow fort. Matt bought Butterbeer. For those few hours, Lily forgot to try to stop worrying about the Inquisition and Christine just plain forgot everything.

  

 

**~*~*~**

After returning from Hogsmeade, Lily had to run to the Entrance Hall to pick up her bags in order to make her tutoring session with Professor McGonagall. Luckily, the woman was scolding a pair of first years when Lily arrived. As the two first years left the room, Lily caught the eye of one of the boys and recognized him as Will McGrath, Tracy and Matt's brother. The other boy, Lily saw, was Sam's brother Chad Caldwell. She smiled at the pair. Chad lowered his head in shame, but Will gave her a big smile and wave before they both ran off and Lily entered the class.

"Chad and Will causing trouble?" Lily asked, her good mood from her Hogsmeade escapade lingering.

"I never had that sort of trouble with their sisters," Professor McGonagall muttered.

"Be glad you'll never have to teach _my_ sister," Lily said, setting her bag on a desk and summoning her Transfiguration book. Yes, using the spell caused a lot of excess parchment and books to tumble out, but it was faster than searching through with her hands.

"How old is your sister?" McGonagall asked.

"Twenty-two in April," Lily replied, shoving everything but the book back into the bag.

"I assume she's a Muggle," Professor McGonagall said.

"She's the most Muggle person in the world," Lily replied, wondering why her things wouldn't fit back into her bag properly. She'd taken something out. Shouldn't it be easier then? "If there were a scale of Muggle-ness she would be a twelve out of ten."

"Interesting."

"Not really," Lily disagreed, shrinking her Charms book and only then managing to put everything in her bag. She turned to find McGonagall looking worriedly at her bag. "Don't worry. I do it all the time." The professor gave a curt nod.

"Have you read chapter ten?"

 

 

**~*~*~**

Lily met Remus in the Entrance Hall just after she had finished her tutoring session with McGonagall. Seeing Remus standing the shadows of the hall only served to remind Lily of the most boring task of all that lay in front of her: patrol. Hours and hours of patrol. But it would be okay, Lily resolved, because she'd had a partially good day up until that point. Sure, lunch hadn't been great and Arithmancy had been a little painful, what with obsessing over James again, but the afternoon went well and the tutoring had been helpful. Maybe her day was on an upward trend.

"Hey, Remus," Lily greeted.

"Hello," he replied, turning to head down a corridor.

"I'm sorry about the things I said this morning," Lily replied, following him down the corridor. "I was tired and sleep deprived, and I had no right to yell at you."

"I understand."

And while his response didn't exactly alleviate the guilt she felt, Lily knew she had to accept his treatment. After all, she had been especially horrible to him for no apparent reason. Well, the reason seemed more apparent at the end of the patrol, after hours of silence.

"I'm glad we're taking these patrols. Honestly. You're the best partner I could have. I spoke with Kevin and he was telling me about patrolling with Jodie. It's horrible. She tackles little children and things like that. You and I, though, we work well together. The badges keep us from being really effectual, but we try. And you care and everything. In fact, you might be on track for Head Boy, because I think you'd do good leading those meetings and things." Lily's babbling elicited no respond. "And I'll just shut up now."

Despite Lily's words, the pair still lost all words and dialogues. What happened to the boy who had walked with her that morning? Oh, and hadn't Matt thought Remus was a werewolf? That could have been interesting.

  **~*~*~**

 

 

The patrol ended quickly enough, though it was a silent affair. The next day, Lily went through a similar routine, including the tutorials. The Transfiguration professor in class was intensely competent as a teacher. One on one, she proved herself to be intensely powerful. Watching the ease with which she both transfigured live animals and conveyed the lesson to Lily made the younger girl feel overwhelmed.

Actually, a lot made Lily feel overwhelmed. Her rib injury, which she still had to see Pomfrey about once a day, made climbing stairs more of a challenge than it had ever been before. At meals, people still tended to look at her whenever she entered or exited, though Lily knew she was just the most recent attraction in the ever-running rumor mill. It helped her to remember that there were still people like James Potter who did not know about the Crystal Ball.

Yes, it was all a bit overwhelming.

So it's easy to see why Lily walked into the library on Wednesday night for her study session with all the energy from her Monday Hogsmeade trip gone.

Lily threw her bag of supplies on the ground next her table, slouched into her chair, and rested her head on her arms on the table. Maybe, just this once, she could forget studying and simply fall asleep. Just fall and fall and fall.

"Hello, Lily," greeted James Potter, he who Lily definitely did not want to hear, he who was the only voice she would listen and respond to right then.

"Hello, James," she mumbled, resigned to his constant presence on Wednesdays. Yes, she was happy to hear his voice, to have him occupy the chair next to her, to just generally be near him, but she didn't have to let him know that. She could obsess over him in silence until the feeling passed. And it would pass. Eventually.

Sure, it hadn't passed after nearly a year nor lessened when she was in a relationship with another boy, but that was no reason to give up hope, was it?

The night might have passed away in silence if Lily hadn't found herself unable to sleep and unwilling to accept another silent night with a member of her year. If Remus didn't want to talk, that was fine. He was forced to be with her and could do as he liked, but James came into the library and intruded upon her time. The least he could do was entertain her, right?

Lily turned her head in her arms, considering the anomaly that was James Potter. She looked him over closely and the sight frightened her. He had deep bags under his eyes, looked thinner than normal, and his eyes still held that guilt-filled look she understood only too well, though she could not imagine the cause of his guilt. Was this what he had looked like two nights ago, when the dark of the night obscured her view? Was this what she had seen at lunch and in classes over the past week? How had she missed his obvious pain?

"Are you all right, James?" Lily asked, concern bringing the words to her mouth before sense could stop them.

"What?" he asked. She hesitated, then repeated her question.

"Yes. I'm fine. Fine," he said, looking a little distracted and a lot like he didn't want to have this conversation.

"Oh. You sure?" Lily asked, and then he focused his eyes on her and Lily froze. If she wasn't careful, she'd stare at him.

"I just-- no, never mind."

"Is it about Sirius?" Lily asked. Since the Inquisition, specifically since the strange words of the orange-eyed German, Lily could not help but keep wondering about Sirius Black.

"What? No. Why would you think that?" James shot back. His defensive attitude told more than he wanted.

"When I found you on the seventh floor on Sunday. He looked-- I don't know. Sad." Lily didn't know why she mentioned that moment now. She hadn't mentioned it to anyone else, but mentioning it to James Potter made the most sense. They were best friends. "Just take care of him, all right?'

"I'm trying." And once more James' eyes unfocused out into the night. "He just doesn't seem to want my help."

"Sometimes, people need help the most when they refuse to accept it," Lily said, unsure what personal experience she had in this area, only knowing with a certainty that it was true. With a final look at James, Lily grabbed her bag off the ground and hauled it onto the desk in front of her.

"So," James began. There was a long pause. "You were at the Ball?"

Processing his question, trying not to like the fact that he cared, Lily searched through her bag, finding jumbles of parchment and ink, a couple blouses, and a shoe.

"Yep," Lily replied, picking a spider out of her bag and placing it on the table.

"And you were called to the Inquisition on Sunday," James said, pressing a conversation that Lily didn't want. She couldn't find anything in this bag.

"Yes, and what a load of fun that was," she said sarcastically. She leaned back and reached into the pockets of her robes, finding a square foot of parchment that she placed on the table. Now she just needed a quill. She reached over and snatched James's quill right out of his hand, dipping it in the ink in front of him.

"Did you see-- do you know-- do you know what happened there?" James asked. Lily scribbled onto her parchment: _Sam. Where's my astronomy stuff? Lily._ The ink disappeared a moment later.

"Yes. Voldemort and his Death Eaters attacked the Ministry Ball," Lily replied, staring at the parchment for a moment, hoping Sam had heard the ding that accompanied the incoming message.

"Everyone knows that," James said, waving a hand. "Do you know any details?"

"Details?" Lily repeated, looking up. His emphasis on the word sent shivers down her spine, bad shivers, shivers that reminded her of the flash of lights hurtling at her shield.

"Do you know what really happened?" James inquired, a look of mingled hope and fear crossing his tired face. Lily thought about the tons of things she knew happened there: curses and hexes, missing guests, suspicions flying left and right, deaths. But what did James know of those things? What did he want to know about those things?

"I left almost immediately after the Death Eaters arrived," Lily said, looking down at the parchment.

"Is that why--" He cut himself off. He had obviously begun thinking about what he was about to say as he said it. That must have been a first in James Potter's life. Now he only had to learn how to think before speaking and not excite the curiosity of the listener.

"Is that why what, James?" Lily asked, leaning back in her seat and crossing her arms over her chest.

"Is that why you were in the hospital wing on Friday?" he asked. She leaned forward, rubbed her hands over her eyes, then opened them and focused on James. How did he know about that? Never mind. Easy answer: Remus. He _had_ been back at school.

"Yes," she said shortly, not willing to explain anything more about her injuries.

"And is that why you were breathing so hard after you chased me that night?"

"No," Lily replied sarcastically, "that was just because I'm out shape."

James cracked a half-smile. It faded quickly from his face and his hand traveled up to his hair, pausing just before it reach its destination and fell back to the table like a failed Levitation Charm. Then he looked her in the eye and said, "I'm sorry I just left you there."

"You're what?" Lily exclaimed, pushing her seat away from the table.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, looking very uncomfortable as he dropped his gaze.

"No. No, you're not." Lily couldn't handle this right at this moment. Who did James think he was, apologizing? James Potter never apologized. Never. What was this? Oh. He was just playing another prank, trying to lull Lily into a false sense of security.

"Yes, I am," he said, sounding both sincere and like he desperately did not want to be explaining this. "A lot happened over the break. Sirius was mad and so we played a prank. Only, Sirius took it too far and it wasn't really a prank anymore, which I realized a bit late. And when you found me, I was trying to fix everything and I didn't even know that you were hurt."

"I just don't understand," Lily said, shaken and angry that his words were effecting her so much. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Well--" He looked lost. Absolutely lost. It was as if even he did not know why he would bother with this apology. "Shouldn't I be apologizing?"

"Why would you?" Lily asked. His blank look answered her question.

But then she started thinking about it. Why would he be apologizing unless someone told him to? And why would someone have told him to apologize-

He knew. Oh gosh. He knew.

He wouldn't be apologizing if he didn't know how she felt about him.

Suddenly the pleasant feeling of liking him, which she'd enjoyed for a couple of days now, disappeared. Ran away. Tracy told Ian. That meant she figured it out and could have told James. Of course she told James. They were friends and she probably didn't see the harm in telling him. Oh frick. What if, like Matt had said, James and Tracy were actually more than friends? Lily had never believed that before, but it made sense. It made a lot of sickening sense. What if they dating and Tracy had convinced James to let Lily down easily?

Lily felt an overwhelming amount of shame at the thought. Closing her eyes, she tried to breathe normally. This couldn't be happening. And yet it was. James knew. He was apologizing and he never apologized. He had to know, and he was just trying to be nice to her, the sad little girl with a big crush. He knew and it made her ill. He was just being nice for Tracy and here Lily was, enjoying his company. Oh frick!

A quiet ding sounded. Lily blinked and looked down at her parchment where it said: _Lily. Your notes are in your Herbology book and your book is in the dorm. Sam._ What was she even talking about? Oh. That's right. The astronomy notes. Who cared about astronomy notes?

"James," Lily began, still looking at the parchment.

"Yes?"

"Stop it."

"Stop what?" he asked, sounding genuinely confused.

"Stop this. Stop sitting here every Wednesday. Stop pretending. I know you don't just come here because you want to. I know about you and Tracy." She looked up and the shock on his face confirmed everything she'd hypothesized. Every last bit of it. Oh frick. He came he because Tracy told him to! He came to be friends with her so that he and Tracy could be together!

"Who told you?" James asked. Lily felt like she'd been hit by twelve curses.

"Ian hinted at it and Matt guessed. I put it together myself," Lily said, shaking her head and feeling like a fool. Such a fool.

"I didn't want you to find out," James said, shame evident in his voice. "I'm sorry."

"Stop it," Lily said, closing her books and putting them away with shaking hands. How could this be happening? "You don't need to sit here and make nice with me. You hurt me last year, but I'm sure that I hurt you too. You don't have to apologize to me anymore."

"Lily--"

"No," Lily interrupted, finishing packing up her things. "I don't need your company. I don't need your apologies. I don't need you to make me feel better. I know you know, but don't let it bother you anymore. Forget how I feel and I'll do the same." _I'll forget you and how perfect I can't help but think you are._

Lily picked up her bag and turned to leave the library with silent tears lying unshed in her eyes. Even as sadness and shame overran her, Lily felt guilt in the back of her mind. Why was she so upset by this? The Prewetts had died. She had nothing to complain about. Nothing. So she pushed those tears back and refused to let them fall. She pushed her ego and heart away, ignoring their bruises. She had nothing to complain about.

If a year ago, someone had told Lily that James Potter would discover her secret crush, she would have demanded to know how. She would have yelled a bit and then she would have promptly ignored James and that friend.

If someone had told James a year ago that Lily Evans would learn about his feelings (as he now believed she had) and look like she wanted to cry, he would have laughed and thought it impossible. Sure she didn't like him yet, he would have thought, but she would some day.

But instead of that yelling girl and that laughing boy, Lily Evans and James Potter were two broken halves of a heart that had yet to be put together. They both had dark circles under their eyes, shaking hands, and fatigue settling on their shoulders and showing itself in slow movements. But more importantly, the difference between their fifth year selves and their sixth year personalities was that neither was thinking of themselves in that moment.


	16. Very Long (Confusing) Conversations

"You look sort of disgusted," Lily said, poking around her udon for another piece of chicken.

"I'm fine," Gertrude Wrightman replied, lifting her chopsticks out of the bowl with a single noodle on them. Lily watched with barely hidden mirth as the noodle unraveled and fell.

"Have you ever used chopsticks before?" Lily asked.

"On occasion," the Slytherin replied, tediously wrapping another noodle only to have it fall again as she tried to lift it to her mouth.

"Did you eat anything on that occasion?" Lily placed her chopsticks against the edge of her bowl and grabbed her wand. " _Accio_ fork."

The utensil flew across the kitchens, and Lily felt a brief stab of fear as she realized the sharp speeding object was headed right for her. Just as she was contemplating ducking, a house-elf blinked into existence in front of Lily, grabbed the fork out of the air, then turned and handed it to Lily.

"Thanks," Lily said, twisting to hand the fork to Gertrude, who looked rather steadily at Lily, her hands stilled on the table.

"You thanked the house-elf."

"I make a habit of thanking people that stop speeding forks from stabbing me in the eye," Lily said, waving the fork before Gertrude. "Take it."

"No, thank you." She shook her head, blonde hair gentle cascading around her shoulder like some sort of princess. She raised her chopsticks to show her proficiency, no doubt, but when one of the sticks fell out of her hand and into her bowl, Lily smiled.

"Come on, Gertrude," Lily cajoled, inching the fork closer. "Take the fork. You know you want to eat."

She pulled herself up to her full, perfect posture. "It's not customary to eat udon with a fork."

"But it is efficient."

"Will you use one?"

"No. I really like chopsticks."

"Then I'll use them, too."

"That's stupid," Lily accused, jabbing the fork at the girl. "I can use chopsticks and you can't, why not just use the fork?"

"Eating with different utensils would never happen at a proper dinner," Gertrude answered, her pale blue eyes fixed on Lily, who rolled her own.

"Good thing we're sitting here in the kitchens and not at a proper dinner, then," Lily said, grinning.

Gertrude, giving Lily that ever-present calculating look, leaned across the little wooden table they shared and took the proffered fork. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Lily picked up her chopsticks and scooped noodles into her mouth.

"Where did you learn to use chopsticks?" Gertrude asked, twirling noodles on her fork and taking a bite.

"My dad loves Japanese food. I grew up on sushi and udon," Lily replied with a shrug.

"Sushi made in England?"

"Of course," Lily replied, taking a sip of her green tea and wincing when it burned her mouth. So she picked up her water and drank that to cool down her tongue. "Where else would the sushi be made?"

"My father orders sushi from a Japanese restaurant for dinner parties. The restaurant Portkeys over a sushi bar and chef."

"That seems unnecessarily complicated," Lily said. Each time she had dinner with Gertrude, Lily learned more and more about the extravagant way the other girl lived. Not that Gertrude was blatant or rude about it. Nor did she brag. Instead, she mentioned things like companies Portkeying bars and people over for her father's parties in such a casual way that Lily honestly believed the girl thought nothing of it. Which, of course, made it much more ridiculous. "Your dad must really like sushi."

"He likes serving it at parties," Gertrude corrected, and while Lily wasn't exactly sure why someone would want to serve something that they didn't enjoy themselves, she accepted the fact that Gertrude's family was a little different. Or maybe Lily was a little different. It hardly mattered.

"How're your patrols going?" Lily asked.

"Very well, thank you," Gertrude said, nodding at Lily. "Though we caught a Slytherin last night."

"I hope you didn't take off too many points." Lily smiled. Three weeks ago -- before the sixth year prefects had received the extra patrols and before Lily and Gertrude made a point of eating dinner together twice a week for no more particular reason than that they had run into one another in the kitchens and enjoyed sharing a silent meal -- Lily knew there was no way that Gertrude would have trusted her with this information.

"We gave him two detentions," Gertrude said.

"What year?"

"Fourth." Gertrude looked solemn about that fact.

Lily shook her head. Two detentions? Lily barely took points off. But if there was one thing that Lily had learned about Gertrude Wrightman during these dinners, it was that the girl was fiercely proud-- proud of her family, proud of her lifestyle, proud of her house. She considered a Slytherin student caught out of bed to be a disgrace and punished them much more harshly than she did other houses. Her prefect partner seemed to agree with her methods. Lily was surprised they didn't want to expel the fifth year Slytherin prefects who had been caught snogging during their patrol.

"Gertrude," Lily began a minute later, pushing her noodles in lazy circles in the bowl, "do you still think Gryffindor is splintered?"

Gertrude lifted her eyes from her soup to meet Lily's. "Pardon?"

"Three weeks ago, after the Inquisition, you and I went on a walk and you called Gryffindor splintered."

"Yes?" Gertrude raised her eyebrows.

"Do you still think Gryffindor's splintered?"

"Yes," Gertrude said, looking back down at her soup.

"I don't understand what you mean by that," Lily said, letting go of her chopsticks to put her hand on the table.

"Yes, you do." Gertrude picked up her fork and began to slowly eat. Lily, who found herself full and unable to eat anymore, was annoyed.

"No. I don't," protested Lily. "If I did, I wouldn't ask."

"Your house is at a turning point, facing a world that half of them won't or can't accept," Gertrude said. "The other half -- you and the people you choose to bring with you -- will be on one side, and the rest will go alone."

"So this is my fault? This splintering?" Lily didn't believe that. Didn't even know what Gertrude meant by implying that Lily would leave half her house behind.

"Have you told Samantha about the Ball yet?" Gertrude asked, picking up her Japanese-style stone teacup with both hands.

"No," Lily said, eyes back on her thick noodles. Surely the other girl wasn't implying that Lily was fracturing her house. She was protecting her friends. They didn't need to know about certain things.

"I met a woman once," Gertrude began, placing her cup back down on the table and pushing her plate away before folding her hands on the table, "who told me that you and I were tied together, our futures. I didn't believe her, though she was from an old family. At the time, I was disinclined to believe that we were in any way connected. But when I ran into you three weeks ago and found you to be exactly as I imagined, I thought we might have an mutually beneficial arrangement."

"What?" Lily asked. Gertrude's statement startled Lily into looking up at her and meeting her clear, almost see-through blue eyes. Could she possibly be talking about the orange-eyed mole woman?

"So I spoke with you about your house and made an agreement, because I believed you wouldn't tell anyone."

"Of course I wouldn't. I didn't."

"There is no 'of course' about it," Gertrude said, manicured nails tapping the tabletop. "Most people are not like you, Lily. Most people do not promise to keep secrets without thinking."

Lily almost wanted to protest and say of course most people would want to protect another person, but then she remembered spells flashing at her, she remembered Tracy telling Ian about James, she remembered Petunia reading her diary and reciting it to their parents at dinner.

"Maybe not," Lily said, though the idea unsettled her, "but I'd hope you know me well enough by now to know that with me, it is 'of course.' Of course I would never tell something you told me in confidence."

"It's not just that," Gertrude said, hands now resting on the table as she looked rather confused. "You'll keep every bit of this conversation a secret simply because you know I prefer that no one knows we meet."

"Well, yes, I will. But so what?"

"You have no idea how extraordinary that is to me because you trust without thinking."

"Not anymore," Lily murmured, crossing her arms and leaning back.

"Yes, still. But now you tend to second guess your friends. You don't even trust your own house anymore, your best friends, to understand what you went through at the Ball."

Lily scowled. That wasn't true. She was twisting things.

"They can't understand," Lily said, remembering the way that Sam didn't even want to speak Voldemort's name or laugh about Death Eaters. "They can't."

"Why not?"

"They weren't there."

"Neither was I, yet you speak about it with me," Gertrude said, still sounding curious. Well, okay, that was a valid point. Even Lily had to admit that. But did Gertrude really not see the differences in the situation?

"You aren't the same."

"Why not?"

"Because you--" Lily didn't know quite how to say it. She wanted to tell Gertrude that during these meals Lily felt calm. Talking with Sam and Tracy recently had become a test of her patience; they seemed to expect Lily to break down or be frightened or destroyed. She wanted to scream at them both and say she was fine. Fine. No, she didn't fear Death Eaters coming in through her window. No, she didn't eat as much as before, but she just wasn't hungry. No, she didn't want twenty feet of parchment; she wanted a friend to listen to her and not cut her off to assure her that everything would get better. Not ignore the past. Simply listen.

"Because I what?" Gertrude pressed.

"You're not them," Lily offered, knowing as she said it that it was weak. "You don't push me to talk about the Ball and so it's that much easier to talk about. I know that you understand that what happened there doesn't define my life. They seem to want me to tell them some gruesome or heroic or tragic story and talk about the ways it changed me. But it wasn't any of those things. It just was. And now it's over."

"It's not over," Gertrude said. "It's still happening."

"You don't think I know that?" Lily asked incredulously. "I do. I know that other people are being attacked, that Voldemort is still out there hurting people, but I can't do anything about that right now, and I'm not going to forget how to live. I'm not going to take it out on the Slytherins or stop laughing when one of my friends makes a joke. That would be letting him win."

"Mm-hm."

"They don't understand that. Sam seems to be waiting for me to break down and Tracy can't even figure me out anymore." Lily shrugged. She hated explaining things. A lot.

"Why not just tell them all of this?"

Lily shook her head and remembered Sam's reaction when Lily had made a joke about Voldemort's day planner. "Because they'd freak out."

"They're already concerned about you."

"Well. They ought to stop that." Lily picked at the table with her nails. "I didn't really go through anything--"

"You _would_ say that!" Gertrude exclaimed, a disbelieving smile drawing as she shook her head. Lily was so shocked to hear her speak loudly that she looked up. "You honestly believe all of that, don't you?"

"Believe what?"

"That you didn't go through anything."

"I didn't, and I seriously wish that people would quit thinking I did!" Thoughts of Cordelia Crouch and Dumbledore and Sam and all of those well-wishers popped into Lily's mind.

"And here people think you're an example because you've suffered silently and carried on, when in actuality, you honestly believe that there was no pain, no hurt," Gertrude said. Lily remembered her chest pain and lying in that hospital bed.

"There was pain, Gertrude," Lily said, hand going to clutch the charm on her necklace, "but nothing compared to others."

"Who? The Prewetts?"

"How do you know about that?"

"I know a lot about what happened at the Ball: only important figures and guests with Muggle-born or a Half-blood dates or heritage came; when the Death Eaters showed up, most people ran blindly from the attackers, but there were reports from both Death Eaters and guests of one lone girl standing up to them, casting a shield-- the brightest form of the shield as if to draw attention away from others. With her red hair and glowing green eyes, they say she stood like an Amazon, like a queen, like one who might never fall. And when the third spell hit her she flew backwards and crushed a table, breaking several ribs and puncturing a lung, but she only lost her grip on her wand when it cracked in two in her hand. They say she later gave up a Wizard's Debt from one of the most influential people in the world and no one understands why."

Lily met her friend's gaze defiantly. "Maybe she didn't want people thinking she'd done something she hadn't."

"You deserved that Debt. The fact that it existed proved that you saved Cordelia Crouch's life, and you must know that. But you would never want someone in your debt, never want someone to owe you anything. You gave up any right you had to a fortune or power or a secure job in the Ministry because your sense of honor would not let you force someone to obey you.

"Be humble with others. I know the truth," Gertrude said, steel lacing her words.

"You don't know the truth," snapped Lily. "You don't know what it was like to stand there when men appeared out of nowhere and started trying to kill the people around me. You don't know what it was like to wake up unable to speak or even cry because of the pain in my chest and the fire in my throat. You don't know what it was like to not know if my friends were alive and be unable to ask. You don't know how much it hurt that my parents were so grateful I was _fine_. You certainly don't know what it was like to look at the Prewetts's children during the Inquisition, knowing what happened, knowing that by living I only made their pain worse and served as a reminder of what they lost.

"And you have no idea what it was like to have a woman give me credit for saving her life. I didn't mean to do it. I'm not a hero. I was lucky to get myself out of there, let alone Mrs. Crouch. To claim that I'm strong, that I deserved to live, what does that say about the Prewetts? When I was shaking with fear, they spoke to Voldemort. _They_ are the heroes. If I could die half as well as them, with my back straight as I faced down Voldemort, I would be honored."

Lily, to her shame, was crying. She heard a popping sound just as a house-elf appeared with a box of tissues held in his shaking hand. Lily took the box and grabbed a few tissues to wipe the streaks of tears from her cheeks. Gertrude, across from her, looked pained.

"Do you believe you should have died, Lily?" Gertrude asked.

"No," Lily said, shocked. "I don't believe _anyone_ should have died."

There was a pause, with Lily dapping her eyes and Gertrude looking on.

"Do you feel better now, having gotten all of that out?" Gertrude asked.

Lily leaned back in her seat and thought about it for a moment, thought about how she felt and how she would always feel about the Ball. She considered it to be something to move past. Something to remember but not to dwell on. She was not to blame, she knew that, but nor was she to move on without thought. The Ball had changed her.

"You know," Lily replied, "I think I do feel better." A sudden burst of almost-hysterical laughter escaped her lips, followed by a stream of giggles and laughs, all chasing after one another and collapsing together inside a sound that might once have been a sob.

"You're very strange, Lily," Gertrude said, but she looked content, and Lily just felt light. She felt like she could float away. She, though she hadn't realized it, had wanted to yell those words since the Inquisition three weeks before. Actually having said them made everything seem a little bit brighter, even the odd orange and yellow tie-dye snuffbox. Now, at last, someone understood that Lily really wasn't a hero.

"Let's eat some fried ice cream," Lily offered, smiling.

"Yes. Let's."

Together they sat at that little wooden table in the kitchens, under the Great Hall, and ate fried green tea ice cream. They sat as two friends, comfortable with silence, and finally comfortable with themselves. They sat, one with some of the weight (though certainly not all of it) lifted off her shoulders and the other sat contentedly because for the first time in her life, Gertrude had a friend that looked out for her first, of course.

And for the first time in a long time, Lily felt neither irritated nor angry underneath her happiness. She was not angry that she would take a Transfiguration exam late or angry with her body for aching occasionally. Instead, she was just happy and eating. 

 

~*~*~

 

"Hey, Matt," Lily greeted as she walked down the stairs and into the Entrance Hall of the castle, surprised to find the Head Boy waiting for her instead of Remus.

"Hello, Lily," he replied, pushing himself away from the wall.

"Why're you here?"

"It's another full moon and I'm here to fill in for Remus who needed to visit his sick aunt."

Lily crossed her arms. "And I'm supposed to believe that means he's a werewolf?" 

"There seems to be some overwhelming evidence."

"Oh, shut it. You can't prove anything," Lily said good-naturedly, smirking. Okay, maybe Remus was a werewolf or maybe his aunt was and he had to go home to care for her. And maybe that was supposed to be scary, but all Lily felt at that moment was relief that Remus was not beside her. Three weeks and two more silent patrols had passed since Remus had signed them up for the additional patrols, and Lily was going to implode if she had to walk through another four-hour shift with a silent partner. Matt, at least, was talkative.

"I'm not trying to prove anything. I just want to know what's happening with him," Matt clarified, beginning to walk toward the stairs.

"Why do you care?" Lily asked, turning to match his pace.

"Don't you want to know if you go to school with a werewolf?"

"If he is one, which I still doubt simply because, well, look at him, would that change him in your mind?"

"It seems important," Matt responded, not exactly answering the question.

"Why?" Lily asked, opening a door and peering into the room with her _lumos_ spell. "I hated people asking me about the Ball, and that didn't even affect me. Can you imagine how much werewolves must hate being asked about their transformations?"

"The fact that he might be a werewolf doesn't scare you?"

"Does it scare you?" Lily asked as Matt opened a door and checked it.

"I'm not sure yet," Matt replied, taking a step into the class to look behind the door. "I want to understand."

"I don't. If he's a werewolf and he's managed the seemingly impossible task of hiding that from the rest of the students for six years, why should we care?" Lily asked, twirling her wand in her fingers, letting the light flash across the walls and floor. "He obviously hasn't bitten anyone or done anything really evil, right? He just manages to bore me to death on patrols, and that doesn't seem too bad in comparison."

"The threat he poses to your friends doesn't worry you?" Matt asked, shaking his head as he emerged from the room.

"I don't think you properly understand Muggle-borns, Matt," said Lily in a light tone. "To me, magic and vampires and werewolves are still something from storybooks, where little girls with red hoods are the heroines. It's hard to be scared of vampires and werewolves because they aren't exactly real to me."

"But Voldemort is," Matt declared.

Lily stopped twirling her wand and looked at Matt, who was looking back at her calmly.

She looked forward again.

"Yes, Voldemort's real enough," Lily said. "But I don't want to talk about that."

Lily saw Matt nod out of the corner of her eye and she took the opportunity to quickly scan an intersection corridor for students.

"I had a good time in Hogsmeade with you and Christine," Lily began, deciding that a complete change of subject was needed.

"Me too," Matt replied. "Do you often do that?"

"What? Skive off class and go into town? Well, if you want to know the truth and if you promise not to tell anyone, I'll let you in on a secret."

He smiled. "I promise."

"I never skive off a class," Lily whispered, leaning in, "unless I've already gone to that lesson at a different time and talked with the professor about it."

"You're secretly a Ravenclaw," Matt whispered back, and Lily laughed. But at the sound of her laughter, one of the suits of armor moved. Lily, signaling for Matt to stay where he was and say nothing, crept up to the suit of armor, putting out the light of her wand and badge as she did so.

Behind the suit, crouched down as small as he possibly could be, was a small, shaking student. Lily had been planning on finding a fifth or sixth year, someone she could scare and tease, instead she found this little boy who couldn't have been more than a second year, obviously terrified.

"Are you all right?" Lily whispered, causing the boy to jump back, knock into the suit of armor, which subsequently hit Lily in the nose.

"Ow!" Lily exclaimed, grabbing her nose as she fell on her butt. Pain shot through her chest. Damn those Death Eaters. Then Matt was beside her.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Lily muttered. _No! There was a sharp pain in my chest and my nose hurts. A lot._

" _Accio_ Hufflepuff," Matt said, standing. Apparently the boy was trying to run away, but with that spell, he was pulled back to toward the Head Boy. Even hurting, Lily was struck by the imposing figure that Matt presented. He was a little over two meters and the Hufflepuff was closer to Lily's height.

"I didn't mean to hurt her," the boy said in a rush, looking near tears.

"Yes, and that's all good and fine, but you did hurt her," Matt said. Lily got up, still rubbing her sore nose, and walked over to the pair. Matt was talking to the boy about what could have happened to him, wandering the castle alone at night.

"What were you doing out here?" Lily asked, trying to ignore the throbbing in her nose. The boy shrugged his shoulders and couldn't manage to look her in the eye. He was kind of adorable.

"Were you pulling a prank on the Ravenclaws?" Matt asked. Lily looked at him, surprised that he could think such a small, adorable boy capable of locating and then pranking the Ravenclaw common room.

Lily was about to comment when a statue of a wizard walked forward out of its niche in the wall. Lily found herself pointing her wand in that direction, prepared for anything but what came out. In fact, if it had been an attacking army, a bloodhound, or a Death Eater, Lily would have probably felt less surprise than she did when she saw a tiny brunette girl peering up and down the corridor. _That's right,_ Lily remembered, _the Ravenclaw entrance is the wizard statue._ How had she forgotten?

The small girl froze when she saw the three of them and tried to retreat back, but Matt's voice stopped her when he said, "Come here right now, Camilla Andrews."

If the girl's downcast eyes and slumped shoulders hadn't been enough of an indication of her feelings, her shuffling footsteps sounded like guilt and repentance.

"You snuck out to meet a girl?" Lily whispered in shock to the boy. He nodded his head, still not looking at her. "You can't be more than twelve! What were you going to do?"

He shrugged and Lily shook her head in shock as she could do little more than hope they would have walked around holding hands and feeling very adventurous for being out after hours. They were twelve! At twelve she had only just begun giggling with her friends about how cute boys were and how they want to hug them.

"Why were you out after curfew?" Matt asked the girl, who had finally reached them.

"I was supposed to meet Colton," she replied, eyes still not looking at Matt. Instead they swept over to the boy, who was obviously Colton, and looked even more guilt-filled. "Sorry about being late."

"S'okay," he muttered.

"You're twelve," Lily repeated, looking at them each in turn.

"I'm thirteen," Colton said, still muttering. The boy needed to learn how to enunciate.

"Lily! Matt!" called out a voice from down the corridor. The Head Boy and the prefect spun around to find someone jogging up to them. Lily quickly turned back around to face the second years.

"Hold on, one second," she ordered before muttering, " _Lumos_ " and directing the light of her wand and identifying the jogging bloke as Remus, her approaching prefect partner.

"Remus?" Lily asked.

"Hey. I tried to get the early train out to visit my aunt, but I missed it. So I'm leaving in the morning. Thought I'd relieve Matt," Remus explained, clapping Matt on the shoulder.

 _Guess he's not a werewolf after all,_ Lily thought, feeling proud of herself for not buying Matt's explanation.

"You're catching a later train?" Matt asked, shock in his voice as he glanced out the window as if to make sure it was a full moon. That window didn't have a clear view of the moon, but it hardly mattered. He knew the lunar cycle well enough.

"Yes," Remus replied, smiling a large, happy, excited smile. It looked utterly foreign on his face. Lily thought it made him ten times better than ever before, and she smiled at him.

"You handle this, and I'll take care of the little ones," Lily said to Matt before turning back to the children and seeing them now next to each other and holding hands. "Hey, you moved!"

The jumped apart and looked up at her with wide, scared eyes. Camilla's eyes darted to Matt and Lily watched the girl almost radiate her respect for him. Well, they were in the same house and Matt _was_ Head Boy. It made sense that the girl would not want to have him think little of her.

"Do you two understand why it is not okay to be out after hours?" Lily asked. The two nodded their heads. "Then why'd you risk it?"

They didn't say anything, just glanced at each other, then at Lily. They didn't say a word. Lily sighed.

"What year are you in?" she asked.

"Second," they said together.

"All right. For being out after hours, I take triple your year. That means I'm taking six points from both Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, but I won't mention this to any professors and there won't be any detentions," Lily explained. They both looked visibly relieved.

"Thank you," Camilla said.

Lily smiled at the girl. She couldn't remember the last time she was thanked for taking off points.

"Here's the deal, if I catch you again, I add your year to those six points. Do you understand what that means?" Lily asked.

"It means you'll take eight points the next time, ten the next, twelve the next," Colton replied quickly, glancing at Camilla to see if she was impressed. Camilla was busy watching Lily.

"Is there a maximum?" Camilla asked.

"A maximum?" Lily repeated, incredulous. "You're twelve! How many times do you plan on sneaking around after hours? Sleep. Grow. Study. In your common rooms."

"So there is no maximum?" Colton asked. Lily just started laughing.

"I leave school in a little over a year. You think you can hold off on the sneaking until after then?" Lily asked. By the look of them, no they couldn't. Lily sighed. "All right, we're walking you back to your common rooms. Say goodnight."

Lily turned around expecting to find Remus and Matt looking at her, knowing what was going on. Instead, she found an empty corridor. Looking left and right, shining her wand around, she could not help but stare in disbelief.

"They went left," said Camilla from behind her. Lily turned around and stared at her.

"I don't even have any words. What were they thinking?" Lily asked rhetorically. She shook her head to herself before collecting her thoughts. "I guess I'll be taking you back to your common room, then. Camilla, you first."

The young girl kissed Colton on the cheek and then ran back to the wizard's statue, presumably said the password, and disappeared inside the wall. Lily turned to Colton and smirked when she caught his stunned look.

"Come on, Romeo, let's take you to bed," Lily suggested, gently pushing him forward. "I'm hoping you know the way back to your common room. I certainly don't."

He nodded, and the oddly matched pair walked down the corridor, taking two rights and three sets of staircases.

"We seem to be nearing the Hospital Wing," Lily commented, stepping off the last stair delicately. She had to climb stairs slowly since labored breathing still hurt her chest.

"Mm-hmm," he replied.

"You know," she said glancing at the boy out of the corner of her eye, "you look entirely too happy for a boy who was just caught by a prefect."

"Camilla Andrews kissed me." He practically glowed.

Lily's smile grew. How adorable. Plus, if he was this happy about a kiss on the cheek; that meant they probably weren't sneaking out for a snog. They were just cute twelve -- no, thirteen -- year olds out for a stroll. Aww.

"Does that mean you're dating?" she asked, trying to remember her second year and whether or not people dated back then. She seemed to remember a lot of hand holding, but nothing more. It felt like so long ago. She couldn't believe she was almost a seventh year.

"I dunno," he replied, still smiling. When Lily was a first and second year, she couldn't imagine being a seventh year. They were so old, so cool, so everything that she could ever want to be. Was that what she looked like to this boy?

"She's cute," Lily offered. The boy looked at her with horror. Okay. He obviously did not think she was old, cool, and perfect. Not that anyone really did, Lily reflected.

"She's Camilla Andrews. The most popular girl in our year." And though he did not say it, Lily understood that he thought she was a bit moronic to not know this information. If she weren't a prefect, she was sure he would have rolled his eyes at her.

"Oh. Sorry. I didn't know," Lily replied. He looked mildly offended and as if he was about to respond when Argus Filch suddenly turned a corner and made them both jump.

"Ah!" exclaimed Lily, hand flying to her heart.

"What do we have here?" hissed the ugly, ugly man. "Two students out after hours?"

It took Lily a moment to realize her badge wasn't lit. She quickly touched her wand to it.

"I'm escorting this student back to his dorm," Lily explained, indicating Colton with a jerk of her head.

"You're on shift?" Filch narrowed his eyes at her badge.

"Yes, sir," Lily replied, leaning forward. "He'll be receiving a few minor curses before the end of the night, I assure you."

"Good. Good," Filch said, nodding in approval. Then he stepped to the left and Lily saw the person standing behind him: Will McGrath.

"I see you caught another unappreciative first year, sir," Lily said, eyes wide. Will looked almost ill.

"Yes. Yes. He was talking to Peeves." Filch twitched as he looked at the adorable dirty-blonde haired boy with those trademark grey- blue McGrath eyes.

Lily's eyes locked with Filch.

"If you want, sir, I could take care of him as well," she offered, hoping he would accept. Otherwise Will was in for a detention and probably a large amount of lost points. Lily sincerely hoped that wouldn't be the case. She genuinely liked the boy, and no one deserved to clean the trophy room sans magic just for sneaking out at night.

Filch squinted at Lily. "What's your name, prefect?"

"Lily Evans, sir."

"Evans, eh?" He sniffed the air. "I've heard things about your punishments. The boy with the boils, especially."

"It was his second offense."

"You'd make sure this one was properly punished too?" Filch asked, pointing his dirty point finger at Will. Lily knew that the caretaker would never have trusted a prefect with this responsibility. Fortunately, she had taken some students off his hands before and made sure they complained about their punishments where Filch could hear them. The 'boy with boils' had been a second year Slytherin who had lied a bit too extravagantly about her punishments.

"Yes, sir," Lily replied, nodding.

"You'll be sure he never breaks the rules again," Filch insisted.

"He will understand." Lily nodded again.

"Fine. There are a pair of fifth years in the astronomy tower that I want to catch." And pushing Will a little harder than he had to, Filch left in a flurry, disappearing behind a wall that Lily hadn't known could move. In his wake stood the pale faces Will and Colton.

"Why'd you have to get caught by that bugger?" Lily asked Will, gently putting her hand on his back as she began walking toward Hufflepuff again, indicating that he ought to walk with them.

"I didn't mean to." Will looked adorably grumpy, and Lily could hide her smile. But he and Colton still looked pale.

"You okay, Colton?" asked Lily. He nodded, but looked no better, face pale and eyes suspiciously wet. "Are you sure?"

Colton shot her one last fearful look. "Are you going to curse me?"

Lily's mouth fell open. "Of course not!"

"But you told Mr. Filch--"

"Filch is a mean, unfair man that would have put Will in detention for years. The fact that he gave him over to me because I told him I would beat him only proves that he is ridiculously angry," Lily replied. Colton nodded hesitantly. Will sighed. She had caught him before, though never saved from Filch and he'd obviously been worried about being beaten, too.

"You lied?" Will asked. Of course the boy had to notice that little detail, didn't he?

"It's not something that I'm proud of. Nor do I condone it," Lily replied, trying to avoid being a _horrible_ influence on the boys instead of a mildly horrible one. "But how many points did he take off?"

"None yet. He said he wanted to put me in detention," Will replied. Lily nodded, doing some quick calculations.

"I think this is your fifth time caught out after hours, so that's seven points off Ravenclaw," Lily announced.

"Seven?" both boys exclaimed.

"Yes. Three for the triple-the-year first offence. Add four points for the subsequent offences. Seven." Lily did the math aloud to be sure she'd done it correctly. Arithmancy had been her only numbers class since she was eleven (well, that and a short summer class her father signed her up for, insisting that she needed a basic understanding of numbers; it was that class which she credited with her success in Arithmancy).

"That's unfair," they both said. They'd stopped walking. Lily stopped too.

"What are you, one mind two bodies?" 

"The other prefects only take off five points!" Will said, highly indignant.

"Next time, I'll lose eight points. This is his fifth offence and he only loses seven!" Colton said.

"I leave room for learning. By the time he's twelve he'll have learned to avoid being caught. Just be glad you aren't a seventh year and losing almost fifty," Lily replied.

"That's not fair." Colton looked very put out.

"Do you really think that a first year and a second year out after hours ought to be punished the same way?" Lily asked. "I personally think the second year ought to know better, as he's had a year to learn, just as a third year ought to know better than a second year and so on and so forth. Every year you are more aware, and the lesser points were like warnings. As you grow up you know the risk increases and so it is up to you to decide if it's worth it."

"The other prefects only take off five points each time!" Will said.

"That's stupid. You are much more aware of breaking the rule the second time than the first," Lily replied. Colton stopped moving. She looked at him questioningly.

"This is the entrance," he explained, indicating a large tapestry of a duck.

"Oh," Lily replied, a little shocked. She had completely forgotten. There entrance was a tapestry of a duck. A beautiful duck, but just a yellow duck. Lily briefly wondered what it said about the Gryffindor house that a Fat Lady was their entrance.

As she started to remember seeing this tapestry before when visiting Hufflepuff, she considered the tapestry and couldn't help but wonder if all the entrances were different. The Ravenclaws had a statue. Hufflepuff had a tapestry. Gryffindor had a portrait. What did the Slytherins have?

"We'll be at the end of the corridor, so we won't hear your password," Lily told Colton, "but I want to see you enter that common room and not come back out. If you're caught again tonight it'll be eight points."

"I know," he replied. He looked so put out.

"And don't forget to complain about your beatings in front of Filch," Lily said, winking. The boy smiled, and Lily nodded, placed a hand on Will shoulder and led him back in the direction they came from. 

"Is this the unofficial younger-year-break-out-and-get-caught night?" Lily asked Will.

"No," Will said, kicking the floor and shoving his hands in his pockets. "I was trying to convince Peeves to show me the way to the Slytherin dorm when he started yelling for Filch. He ratted me out."

"You made some very novice mistakes in your expedition," Lily said, shaking her head at how naive the young students could be. "First, you approached Peeves. Second, you talked to him and expected an answer. Third, you didn't run away when he called for Filch. And your fourth mistake, of course, was being caught at all."

"Why should I have run?"

"Because, little first year, the only thing Peeves likes more than getting students into trouble, is causing trouble for Filch. If you'd run, Peeves would never have helped Filch find you." Lily smiled to remember the time when one of Christine's hexes during the game had hit Peeves in the head and he started jumping up and down on Filch's head.

"Oh."

Lily wrapped her right arm around his shoulders. "You have so much yet to learn."

"I have six more years to perfect everything," Will said, smiling his big grin. He looked a lot like Matt right then. And a bit like Tracy before a Quidditch game.

"Six years?" Lily asked. "Why don't you take a break next year and let me have a little calm."

"Take a year off?" Will stepped away from her in horror. "I'd fall so far behind that I couldn't catch back up."

"You sound like you're talking about school--"

"Lily!"

Lily and Will jumped. Without thinking, Lily pushed Will behind her and drew her wand defensively, spells on the tip of her tongue. Until, of course, the pair managed to recognize Remus.

"Trying to kill me tonight, are you?" Lily greeted him, her wand lowering slightly.

"Hey. Sorry. Matt wanted to talk, but when I returned you were gone. I figured you'd walked the Hufflepuff back to his dorm," Remus said, but his boyish grin never left her face. Lily thought briefly about how nice it was to see his tired face relax when he wasn't next to his best friends.

"Yes," she replied. "How do you know where the Hufflepuff dorm is?"

"I explore," he said, shrugging. His eyes locked on Will and he grinned. "I see you picked up another younger year."

"Well, you know, I'm addicted. I need one every few minutes."

Remus winked at Will. "Get caught, did you?"

"She's going to curse me," Will replied happily.

"Or flog him, whichever he'll enjoy least," Lily added, smirking.

"Yes." Will nodded. "Or flogged.

"You should try looking sadder when saying that," Lily said, tapping Will's arm again to nudge him toward his common room.

"Should I cry too?" Will asked, obviously getting excited by the possibility of lying. Lily was a _horrible_ role model.

"I think that might be a bit over the top." Catching Remus's still-confused looked, she explained, "I found him with Filch."

There was a beat.

"And?" Remus asked.

Lily brows drew together. "And I told him the usual."  

Without a spoken word, she and Will began trying to avoid the cracks in the stones. It was very difficult.

"She said she'd give me boils and Colton believed her," Will said, hopping on over a patch of cracks that Lily took a long step over.

"I'd've believed her too," Remus said, beginning to avoid the cracks as well, though he was staring at Lily a bit strangely.

"No, you would not," Lily said, placing a hand on Will's shoulder to balance as she hopped on one foot through a narrow portion. "You haven't believed I'd abuse a first year in years. "

"Hm. Maybe," Remus said, his long legs carrying him past a patch of cracks.

"Did you think I'd actually attacked the loads of other student we've rescued from Filch?"

"Er-- right, of course not," Remus stuttered. And there he went, back to stuttering, a vaguely recognizable action. Lily smiled at Will as Remus fell into step next to them and they all began stepping on cracks once more.

"Were you punished at all?" Remus asked Will.

"I lost eight points," Will replied unhappily.

Lily laughed. "You should be glad it wasn't Matt that caught you. I was patrolling with him earlier."

Will's face paled again. "He'd have been so disappointed."

"You're Will McGrath?" Remus asked. "I know your sister Tracy. I'm Remus."

"Remus Lupin?" The boy's tone turned reverential, all thoughts of his brother's disappointment gone.

"Yeah." Remus grinned.

"You know James Potter, don't you?" Now Will's tone was definitely reverential.

"Yes, I do." Remus could barely hide his amusement.

"He's an amazing chaser. And I heard he organized the Halloween thing." Will's eyes were wide, like he was meeting a celebrity. Lily smiled. He was so adorable.

"He's done more than that," Lily said, knowing Remus wouldn't. "Once, in our fourth year, he made over two hundred posters saying 'Marry me, Sirius' and posted them on every door and entry between the Gryffindor common room to the Great Hall, and in the Great Hall he and Remus here and a boy named Peter Pettigrew hung a banner all the way across the hall that said, 'Will you marry me, Sirius Black?'"

"All the way across?" asked Will in an amazed voice. Lily smiled and nodded. "It must have been huge!"

"It was," Lily said, "and they'd put charms on it so that no one but one of them could remove it, though I'm sure the professors could have done it if they'd wanted to. I think the faculty was secretly glad to see Sirius so embarrassed. It was like retribution for the way he acted in class."

Will looked confused. "Why was he embarrassed?"

"That's the best part," Lily said, smiling in remembrance. "Everyone pretended not to know who put up the signs, though we all knew it was his friends. All day, people were patting him on the back, congratulating him on the engagement, asking who the girl was."

"Did everyone laugh?"

"For days," Lily said. Will laughed and Lily joined in. She glanced at Remus and saw him looking strangely at her, not laughing along.

"That's so funny," Will said, looking up at Remus then at Lily.

"And the next day Dumbledore sent him a congratulatory note, but politely asked for the banner to be brought down," Lily said. Will cracked up. "And his mother sent him a howler, screaming about how he'd disgraced the family and had probably just gotten the girl pregnant and needed to marry her. Everyone knew it was a prank, but his mother didn't. His face was so red at the end of that Howler. It was hilarious."

"Did you really do that?" Will asked Remus. Remus nodded.

"Sirius wasn't too happy about it. We'd done it on his birthday," Remus explained. Lily laughed at that.

"What a great gift!" Lily hadn't known that.

"As you can imagine, he got us back just as well," Remus said.

"What did he do?" Will asked. Lily saw the statue that marked the entrance to the Ravenclaw dorms and slowed her pace. Remus and Will did likewise.

"Maybe the next time you're caught out after hours, I'll tell you," Remus replied, winking.

"It'll cost the Ravenclaw house nine points," Lily said, shrugging and smiling, "but it's your choice."

"I'll ask you during the day," Will told Remus seriously.

"You're learning!" Lily exclaimed, mock-surprised.

"I'm learning to only sneak out when other prefects are patrolling. Ones that take five points each time," he said.

"Or?" Lily prompted.

"Or when Filch isn't out."

"Or?"

"Or I could wait until you leave in a year and then reek havoc on the next set of prefects," Will recited.

"Exactly!" Lily gave Will a high five and then told him to head back to bed. The boy smiled, nodded at Remus, and then did as he was told and walked toward the statue. He'd been caught out of bed so often by Lily that he knew how to respond to her questions. He was lucky he was only a first year. A seventh year in his position would have lost forty-nine points for the fifth offence. Then again, a seventh year wouldn't have been caught.

"You know," Lily said, watching the statue move back into place and block the entrance, "I really like that boy."

"Yeah. He's a good kid." Remus didn't smile.

Lily eyed Remus, noticing the critical way he was looking at her, and she smiled and asked, "So what happened with the train?"

"Hmm?" Remus replied, obviously back in his non-speaking mode.

"How did you miss the train to visit your aunt?" Lily pressed, her good mood keeping her from despairing at his reaction.

"I just missed it. I'll leave tomorrow."

"Guess that means you're not a werewolf," Lily said, walking down the corridor. Remus stumbled and gave her a strange look.

"What."

"Nothing."

"You've been talking to Matt."

"Matt's been talking to me," Lily corrected. Then she waved a hand in a dismissive gesture and said, "But that's not important. What _is_ important is for you and I to have a serious discussion about these patrols."

"Talking about patrols is more important than discussing the fact that the Head Boy thinks I'm a monster?" Remus asked, practically growling. Lily stopped and opened the door nearest to her, peering inside for a moment.

"He never thought you were a monster," Lily commented, shutting the door.

"He thought I was a werewolf, he just told me. Apologized, shook my hand and everything."

"Really?" Lily asked. "That's great."

He scowled. "He thought I was a monster and you think that's great?"

"Again with this monster business," Lily said, waiting for Remus to open the door to his left and check it. Instead, he stood and stared at her so she walked around him and checked the room herself. "He said werewolf, not monster."

"Is there a difference anymore?"

"Yes. Otherwise there wouldn't be two words." The room was clear. Lily shut the door and continued walking.

"So you didn't agree with him?" Remus asked.

"About you being a werewolf? For a short while tonight, I almost bought the story, but then you showed up and proved us wrong, so don't worry about it."

"Right," he muttered. Lily walked past the next few corridors without bothering to look in any of the rooms. If there were any students in them, they probably heard the sounds of conversation and hid anyway. In fact, they'd probably hide for an extremely long time just to ensure that the prefects weren't still around. That seemed enough punishment for the moment.

"Now, back to the more important matter: patrols," Lily said, turning to face him as they walked. She had to shuffle sideways to keep up.

"What about them?" Remus asked.

"They're dreadfully boring," Lily said, turning to face forward again, "but I think I have a solution. As you have repeatedly turned down my offers to snog and be caught, which would have eliminated any future patrols and any danger of becoming McGonagall's favorite students, I had to think of other ways to occupy the long, boring hours."

"You've been thinking about this for a while, haven't you?" Remus asked.

"Well, you never speak during these things, so I have a good four hours to contemplate how to improve the situation every week," Lily commented, only just realizing how insulting that must have sounded when she saw the way his face dropped. She stopped walking and said, "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean that how it sounded."

"Yes, you did," he countered, stopping too.

"Well, I meant the bit about you not talking, but I didn't want to make it sound like it's your fault," Lily said.

"But it _was_ my fault."

"No. It-- Well-- That doesn't matter. I've thought of a solution," Lily finished, beginning to walk and unwilling to hurt him with her words again.

"It seems to be working; I'm talking now," Remus replied, walking too.

"No. We haven't implemented it," Lily protested.

"But I'm talking."

Lily didn't say anything, but she thought, _You might stop at any moment._

"You think I'll stop, don't you?" Remus asked.

Guiltily she held up her thumb and forefinger and said, "Just a little."

Lily turned up a staircase on their left and grabbing the handrail to help her take the stairs more easily (ie. with less pain).

"All right, then. What's your idea?" Remus asked, holding the other railing as the staircase detached itself and swung to the left.

"Truth or dare," Lily answered, glad that the jerking motion of the stairs hadn't caused her more than a small bit of pain in her chest.

"Truth or dare?" he repeated skeptically.

"Yes, truth or dare." The staircase stopped moving and the pair walked up it and into the new corridor. "Do you know how to play it?"

"Nope," he said, putting his hands into the pockets of his robes.

"Well," Lily began, deciding to change the rules a tad, she explained, "You and I ask each other questions in turns, promising to reply honestly. If you don't want to reply, you have to do a dare - something the other person asks you to do which is neither dangerous nor will result in expulsion."

"Where's the fun in a game that can't lead to expulsion?" Remus asked, joking. Lily smiled and looked at him out of the corner of her eyes.

"Oh. This'll be fun. Trust me."

He turned and looked at her smiling face, quirking an eyebrow, then shaking his head as if he couldn't quite believe the way she was acting.

"When do we start?" he asked, turning back to face the corridor.

"How about now?"

"Now is good," he replied. "You want to ask first?"

"Sure." Lily thought a moment, searching for an opening question that wouldn't scare him off but would invite conversation. Sure he seemed talkative so far, but with Remus, it took moments to bring him from talkative to silent.

He smiled. "Can't think of a question?"

"No. I can. Hold on," Lily said. "Okay, how about this: what is the most number of points you have personally lost in a single night?"

"Hmmm." That critical eye was looking at her again, asking her the question that he dared not voice: are you trustworthy? Coming to whatever conclusion he did, he said, "Dare."

"Excuse me?"

"I don't really want to answer that question. I would rather take the dare."

"Oh. Okay," Lily said, beginning to think of dares. Then she stopped herself. "No. Wait. It is not okay. The whole point of this is to open a dialogue. You taking the dare for every question would undermine that. You only pick dare if you really don't want to answer."

"Fine," Remus said. "I once lost seventy-two points in an hour."

"What? How?" Lily exclaimed.

"I don't have to answer those," Remus said, shaking his head. "You're only allowed to ask one question. It's my turn now."

"You're right. Sorry," Lily said, annoyed that he had understood the rules so completely.

"Hmmm. Oh. Okay. Have you ever liked a Marauder?"

"A marauder?" Was Remus asking if she had ever liked an intruder, a looter? What an odd, odd question.

"A Marauder," repeated Remus. Seeing her blank look, he looked surprised and said, "Sirius, James, Peter, and me."

"Oh," Lily replied, shocked. No entry questions for Remus, apparently. He just jumped right to the meat of the matter, asking about crushes.

"Have you?" he asked, a hint of hope in his voice that Lily was sure she was misinterpreting; Remus didn't like her.

"Yes, I have," Lily answered, thinking of James and feeling that now-familiar pang of embarrassment and shame wash over her as she thought about it. She considered telling Remus the truth: I've been obsessed with James Potter for years now. I'm really pathetic. Especially considering the fact that he is now dating one of my best friends. "You named yourselves?"

"What?" Remus asked, looking shell-shocked. Not that Lily had spoken with Tracy about the situation.

"The Marauders. I'm assuming that that is what you call yourselves," Lily explained. In fact, Lily had completely avoided any mention of James with Tracy at all, changing the subject when she tried to talk about him, saying they didn't need to talk about it. That Lily understood why Tracy didn't tell her.

"Oh," Remus said. "Sure. We named ourselves back in second year." But Tracy kept trying to apologize to Lily, which drove the redhead batty.

"Why?" Lily asked automatically. Tracy could have just let it all go, could have admitted to dating James, told the whole school, but instead they continued to keep it quiet.

"Why what?"

Sam had also tried to bring it up, but Lily explained that it wasn't something she wanted to talk about, not with anyone.

"Why in the world would you create a name for yourselves?" Lily asked, pulling her mind away from the circular thoughts in her mind and focusing on Remus.

"I don't know." Remus looked embarrassed and Lily felt badly.

"Sorry," Lily said quickly, catching his eye and smiling. "I didn't mean to sound hostile. I was just wondering."

"It's okay," he said, looking shocked. In fact, Lily noticed that Remus' emotions when he was actually speaking with her were prominently displayed on his face. "I understand."

"Oh. Good. Just didn't want you to think I was being condescending or anything, you know." Lily stopped herself. "Never mind."

"All right," Remus said, then his smile grew and he asked, "Which one did you like, then?"

"I don't think so. Only one question per turn." Lily smirked and congratulated herself on her snappy comeback.

"It's my turn," Remus countered. "You asked, 'You named yourselves?'"

"And you answered with a question," Lily recalled.

"Then you asked, 'Why?' and I said, 'Why what?' and you asked why we named ourselves. Ha! Yours was the last question." Okay. So obviously he'd been paying more attention to the conversation than Lily.

"That was not a question."

"It _was_ a question."

"A clarifying question."

"But still a question. I don't remember the rules stating anything about qualifying the type of question," Remus said, smirking.

Lily gave him a sideways look. "That's a loophole argument."

"That is brilliance."

"You're being ridiculous."

"Answer my question. Who? Which of the four?" Remus pressed, smirking.

"Dare," Lily replied, crossing her arms and glaring. She'd kept this information from two of her best friends; did he really think she was about to tell him now? He was, after all, practically a stranger.

"Picking dare for every question would undermine the purpose of it," Remus said, repeating Lily's own words back at her as his smirk grew into a full smile.

"I'm not answering that. It's a trick question. If I say you, then you'll get one idea, and if I don't say you, your feelings will be hurt. It's a lose-lose answer for me. This one gets a dare."

"I think that's--"

"I'm taking the dare," Lily said, her tone left no room for argument. Even now that James knew that Lily was obsessed with him, Lily had no desire to have the rest of the world know. James had had the grace not to come to the Wednesday night study sessions. Though that didn't help the awkward class situations. But at least he hadn't told the world at large about her crush.

"No. No. I'll change my question, if that's okay with you," Remus offered, carefully not phrasing the comment as a question.

"That'd be all right," Lily replied, "but how about we start smaller with get-to-know-you questions."

"I could do that," he said, nodding and putting his hands in his pocket as he obviously thought of a question to ask. He thought for a really long while. Just when Lily had thought he'd gone silent again, he asked, "What is your favorite ice cream flavor?"

"Oh," Lily exclaimed, excitement lighting up her face. "Every Muggle flavor, basically, but the general ones are the best: chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. With chocolate sauce."

"Sounds good."

"It is," Lily said. She always imagined James would like ice cream-- oh. Bad thought. Evil thought. Must expel and ignore and strike that thought from the record. "You should ask the house-elves for some the next time you're in the kitchens."

"That's right," Remus said, snapping his fingers as she opened another door. "You go to the kitchens, too."

"Yep, and apparently I can get there faster than you," Lily teased, glancing around the room. "Have you used that passage yet?"

"No. We can't figure out how to open the wall at the end yet," he confessed, looking an interesting mix of frustrated and exhilarated by the challenge. Lily laughed as she shut the door.

"That's why you need friends like mine," Lily said. "I forgot about it until you asked me when we'd found the passage, but Tracy and Christine practically lived down there when we first found it. Tracy tried everything that Christine suggested and then modify some of it."

"Tracy wouldn't tell us how to open it," Remus muttered sourly. Lily smiled.

"Of course not! She spent weeks trying to figure it out. We were in second year, unable to even use the _Carificta_ Charm."

"Then how did you know the wall could open?"

"We didn't," Lily said, shrugging, "but Christine refused to give up. She was convinced that a wall at the bottom of a staircase inside a wall couldn't be just a wall. As usual, she was right, though not the way she had expected. She thought we'd find a room of gold."

"Instead, you found the kitchens."

"Exactly." Lily grinned at the memory. "She was so disappointed."

"I can imagine."

"So, my question now," Lily said. "Are you an only child?"

Remus opened his mouth and shut it. Then he gave Lily and a long look.

"Your rule is that we aren't allowed to ask big questions yet," Remus began, looking vaguely uncomfortable, "can my rule be that we can't ask about family or homes?"

"Of course," Lily replied immediately. Of course Remus wouldn't want to talk about his family! They were obviously a sickly group, struggling with various diseases. Oh, Lily felt stupid. "Sorry."

"No need to apologize," Remus said, smiling. "Ask a different question."

"All right," Lily said, thinking. "If you were to celebrate Halloween the Muggle way, what would you dress up as?"

"A pumpkin," he replied immediately, smirking as his eyes twinkled with mirth.

Lily's eyes went wide and then narrowed. He was remembering her costume, obviously. "Ha. Ha."

"I thought you'd find that funny." He gave a toss of his head.

"You thought wrong."

And so, for the first time in two years full of patrols, Lily Evans and Remus Lupin chatted the night away. They spent the time checking doors for students, asking general questions about the other person's background, learning basic information that they had somehow managed to avoid learning in the past five years. They walked under a full moon and blinking stars until two in the morning. Lily and Remus walked and patrolled and learned with the ease of a friendship that hadn't existed before.

Occasionally Lily would look over at him and catch his eye, and the pair would laugh for a moment before asking each other another question ("What was your favorite Christmas gift this year?"). Walking into her dorm that night, Lily had a smile on her face as she was looking forward (for the first time in her life) to her next patrol.

  

~*~*~

"You look happy," Sam said when Lily walked into their dorm.

"Don't you ever sleep?" Lily replied, quickly marching over to her friend's bed and sitting on it, whispering to ensure that the other girls didn't wake up.

"No. I charge. Just plug me in and go," Sam said, lifting her shoulders in an elegant gesture of modesty.

"You're secretly a Muggle," Lily said. "I knew it."

"Yep. I've been hiding it for years," Sam replied sarcastically.

"Not that well, obviously, since I caught on rather quickly," Lily scoffed.

"Sure. Just took you six years, but it's all relative." Sam (and all the Caldwells, including little Chad) had the upper-class ability to enunciate without sounding pretentious. It was almost impossible to miss what she said or what she was implying.

"Is six years really that long a time? You're a good hider."

"Speaking of hiding things," Sam began. "When are you going to talk to Tracy?"

"That was not a smooth transition, Sam," Lily replied, deliberately ignoring the question.

"Well, when?"

"Why do you think I'm avoiding Tracy?"

"All right," Sam said, looking critically at Lily, "you aren't exactly ignoring her, but you aren't going out of your way to talk to her either. For three weeks you've been this way, talking but not being friendly."

"Is there a difference?" Lily asked.

"You know there is."

"I don't want to talk about it," Lily said, catching Sam's intense gaze and matching it with one of her one.

"You sure?" Sam asked. Yes, Lily wanted to scream. Even if Lily did want to talk about it (which she did not), she was naturally an intensely private person. She did not want to talk about her obsession with James or the fact that they knew she was obsessed with James or the horrible embarrassment of looking at them each day, and Lily opened her mouth to say as much when she caught Sam's brown eyes and felt guilty.

This was her best friend. She told Sam everything, didn't she? Then why was this so hard?

"James and Tracy are dating," Lily said after the pause.

Sam's sat up straighter. "What?"

"Shhh!" Lily silenced her friend, glancing around their dorm to make sure that Christine and Tracy hadn't heard. "I know, but you can't tell anyone. It's a secret."

Sam's eyes found Lily's and after a pause she asked, "Then how did you find out?"

"James told me."

"James told you?" Sam repeated slowly.

"Okay. He didn't _tell_ me, but I guessed and his face gave him away," Lily explained, flipping her hand over to indicate the ease of her conclusion.

"When?" Sam was obviously still trying to understand the situation. Lily, who had little to no desire to dwell on this topic, was trying to answer in as concise a way as possible.

"A few weeks ago," Lily said, really not wanting to talk about this, "during my astronomy study time."

"Why was he there?" Sam always had another question, didn't she?

"He made a habit of coming to the library during that time too," Lily said, wondering at the fact that she'd never told Sam that before. Then again, it was a private thing. Lily didn't really know why, but it had been something she wanted to keep to herself.

"And you spoke to one another?" Sam asked.

"Not exactly."

"I'm confused."

"That's okay. All you have to know is that Tracy and James are going out and they don't want anyone to know. Oh. And that Tracy told James that I liked him."

"What?"

"Yeah."

"What happened?"

"Nothing." Why couldn't they stop talking about this? Lily picked at the curtains around Sam's four-poster as she said, "I think she wanted to make sure I wasn't hurt by them dating."

"How did she know you liked him?" Sam asked, tilting her head to the side to get Lily to look at her, which Lily did.

"I don't know," Lily said, letting go of the curtain. "She just did."

"And that's why you're not talking to her?"

"No. I just-- I'm not trying to avoid her. I just feel so embarrassed," Lily explained, leaning back onto her friend's pillows.

"Why?"

"I don't know. He was just coming to study there because Tracy wanted to make sure I didn't feel badly about the two of them being together, and that whole time I thought he might just have been there because, maybe, he wanted to be around me," Lily said, closing her eyes as the entirety of her shame consumed her. "Which is such a stupid thought, because of course he didn't want to be around me. He thinks I'm a Muggle and left me for dead in a corridor=-"

"What?" Sam asked. "Lily, you need to start explaining."

And so Lily sat up and explained. She told Sam about her encounter with James on the train, how he said she wasn't really a part of the magical world, then about how he'd been the one she was chasing and the way he'd left her alone in the corridor. In the end, she couldn't help but wonder what was happening to her and Sam that she hadn't told her best friend these things before. And why she didn't think she would ever tell Sam about Gertrude Wrightman's dinners or another joke about Voldemort.

"And that's how I finally realized he was together with Tracy," Lily concluded. "He apologized about that."

"He apologized to you?" Sam repeated. "And that was how you knew he was dating Tracy?"

"Yes," Lily said. "And he hasn't come back to the library since then, so I guess Tracy said he doesn't have to, and she just keeps trying to apologize to me about the whole mess, but I don't--"

"Tracy's trying to apologize?"

"Yes, about the whole dating thing. She should have just told me when she realized I liked him. That would have made this less embarrassing."

"I think you're wrong about this whole situation."

"Sure. That's why James can't even stand to look at me in class anymore," Lily replied sarcastically.

"No. Listen. We ought to talk to--"

"No one," Lily said to cut off her friend from having an absurd ideas about sharing this information. "Absolutely no one should know about this. Instead, I will talk with you about my fabulous patrol with Remus. He spoke the whole time, brought a pouch of juice for each of us too - one for me with raspberry juice and an apple one from himself, which I didn't even want to smell since I hate the smell of apples so much--"

"Lily. Stop."

"I don't want to," Lily said petulantly, "because you just want to talk about James."

"You really ought to--"

"Go to bed. I agree. I really ought to go to bed. Good night, Sam," Lily finished, standing up and running across to her bed. As she changed out of her clothes and into her pajamas, she had no way to know that Sam had crept over to Tracy's bed and found the beater wide awake. Lily had no way to know that the other girl had heard every bit of their conversation and had to literally physically restrain herself to keep from calling out in horror.

As Lily pulled her curtains shut around her four-poster, Lily could not have known that Tracy and Sam sat in a sound-proofed bed talking about her, exchanging over a year's worth of secrets and schemes. When Lily closed her eyes and let sleep overcome her, she did not realize that Sam was having a year's worth of suspicions confirmed and that Tracy's assumptions about Lily were falling apart.


	17. What Leadership Ability?

"Hey, Lily, why the wide eyes?" Tracy asked, sitting down at the breakfast table after Lily had already opened an owl from her mother and placed the letter from Ian in her pocket.

"Petunia's getting married," Lily said, unable to drag her eyes away from her mother's letter.

Tracy grabbed an apple. "I didn't know she was dating anyone."

"Neither did I." Lily’s stomach twisted uncomfortably. How could she not have known her sister was dating someone? That her sister was in love?

"What's his name?" Sam asked.

"Vernon," Lily replied dully, searching the document for further explanation. Shame and heartache and regret circled in her stomach. Last Lily had heard (or cared, to tell the truth) Petunia was interested in some bloke from the Uni. That had been in August.

"What's his last name?" Christine asked. "That's the important one, since she'll have it soon too."

"Oh," Lily muttered, scanning the letter again, "I guess she will."

How had she and Petunia fallen so out of touch? Whose fault was it? Petunia and Lily, though they did not get along (for which Lily adamantly blamed Petunia), had never been estranged. They annoyed each other, snapped at each other, but they were still sisters. Petunia still asked about Christian and remembered their anniversary. Petunia still wrote monthly letters.

"Well?" Christine pressed. Only then did Lily realize she hadn't replied.

"Dursley. His name is Vernon Dursley," Lily read. When was the last time she'd written her sister? Not since the Ball, Lily knew that much. Petunia had written to ask how she was, but Lily had been irritated with the world and she threw the letter away. Now she wished she'd made an effort, even if her sister could drive her insane.

"Not that great of a name," Christine determined. Lily looked over at her and smiled at Christine's honest face, pulling herself out of the upset mood she had been in.

"It's original," Lily said. "Petunia likes original."

And, finishing the conversation and her meal, Lily left her friends and went up to the owlery to write a letter to Petunia, but found herself unable to properly convey her feelings. She didn't know how to translate her feelings to the parchment. How was she supposed to tell her sister that she missed her? Or, at least, missed knowing her. Even if Lily was irritated by Petunia (and Petunia was definitely irritated by Lily), they had always known each other, hadn't they?

 

 

 

**~*~*~**

~~_Dear Petunia,_ ~~

~~_Mum says you're engaged to be married. When did that_ ~~

 

 

 

**~*~*~**

~~_Dear Petunia,_ ~~

~~_Who is this Vernon character and when did you meet him? What happened to Pete or whoever from Uni?_ ~~

 

 

 

**~*~*~**

_Petunia,_

_Sorry for not writing in so long. Mum said you're engaged! Congratulations. I'm sorry I didn't respond to your letter in January. It was kind of hectic. This dark wizard named Voldemort and his minions attacked the Ball I went to. I know. I know. Who honestly has minions, right? Well, this bloke does. Anyway, I was hurt. You probably know that._

_What you don't know is that he scared me, Petunia. He terrified me. I could have died. And as I was thinking about this, I realized that I'd made far too many mistakes for me to die, starting with the fact that you and I hardly speak. I'm sorry for goading you, pushing you, irritating you. You're my big sister and you have always tried to protect me. You were the one whose room I used to go into when I had a nightmare. And my life is kind of turning into a nightmare and it's making me realize how much I could use a big sister's advice. I miss you. I'm sorry I pushed you away._

_Love,_

_Lily_

  

**~*~*~**

"Lily Evans?" asked a voice behind Lily at dinner later that Sunday. Turning, the seventeen year old found herself facing a very stout professor.

"Yes, that's me," Lily said, standing. In fact, if 'stout' needed a picture definition, Lily was sure this woman would be able to provide one.

"I wanted to talk about a project that James Potter turned in," the professor said. Well, wasn't that a surprise? Lily's eyes flickered toward the end of the table, where she spotted James chatting with Peter Pettigrew.

"He's right down the table, professor," Lily said, unsure why the professor would need directions.

"I know." The woman held up a roll of parchment and pointed it at Lily. "I wanted to talk to you about his project."

"All right." How odd. "I'm sorry, but I don't know what you teach."

"I'm Professor Carpenter," the woman said, inclining her head.

_Oh. The Muggle Studies professor._

"Right. Hello, Professor." Lily felt a little silly not to have known the woman. After all, Lily had gone to school here for six years, one would think she'd know all of the professors.

"Good evening, Professor Carpenter," Tracy greeted, giving Lily a questioning look (one that the Muggle Studies professor hopefully missed). Lily looked back at her and shook her head. She honestly had no idea what this was about.

Professor Carpenter motioned for the door. "If we could please speak in my office?"

Lily looked back at her plate of food and realized she was as done as she was ever going to be, so she turned and nodded at the woman. Together the pair maneuvered around the last dregs of students. It was the very end of dinner that Sunday night, and these students marked the late-dinner holdouts.

"I understand that you are enrolled in Arithmancy," the professor began.

"Yes," Lily replied, falling into step beside her. "It's one of my favorite classes."

"Are you thinking of pursuing a career in it?"

"No." The thought of pursuing a career in numbers and a sort of divination just seemed repulsive to her.

"What are you doing for your seventh year project?" The professor looked over out of the corner of her eye and so Lily had to school her expression to hide just how much she hated that question. It was one of those often-asked-even-though-no-one-was-actually-curious questions.

"The correlation between activation charms and potions.”

"Sounds interesting," the professor said, stopping in front of a portrait and placing her hand against it.

"It's not, really." Lily watched the portrait swing open and hesitated just a moment before following the professor inside. She  reached into her robes for her wand, just to make sure it was there. "I'm hoping to change if I can think of something better soon."

"It's a year of your life you'll spend on this. Choose carefully." Carpenter sat down on a short red chair, motioning for Lily to sit on the blue chair opposite her.

"I'm really sorry, professor," Lily said, sitting on the soft fabric, "but I have no idea why you've asked me to speak with you."

"James Potter turned in a project to my class and cited you as a source," the professor explained, stretching her short arm across her desk to grab a roll of parchment on the other side. Lily wondered why the woman didn't just summon it. "The assignment was to ask a Muggle-born student about the things they miss from the Muggle world."

"Oh! That. Yes. He asked me to help him with a project," Lily said, sagging in relief that this wasn't some completely random meeting. "But that was months ago, wasn't it?"

"Well," the professor said, retrieving the parchment and leaning back again, "that was only one part of a much larger assignment which the students turned in last week. I started reading James's two nights ago and was so surprised by the answers. I tried to find you then, but you were out of your dorm on a patrol."

Yes, that had been the night of the Good Patrol. Lily hadn't seen Remus since then, actually.

"I'm sorry professor, but I don't remember exactly what I said to James. It was before the holidays and-- I was busy most of New Year's--"

"Right," Professor Carpenter interrupted. "Well, he wrote that when he asked you what you missed most about the Muggle world and a specific thing you gave up, you replied, 'While I appreciate the great power of magic, there are some things that I would prefer to have in a Muggle way, things such as television and telephones. It's frustrating to have to learn new forms of mass media and communication. But sometimes, I miss whipped cream in a bottle.'"

"Oh. That's right. I'd forgotten," Lily muttered. After hearing his pre-written answer she had been shocked, annoyed, and basically unable to comprehend James's pattern of thought.

"Then you really said these things?"

"I agreed to put my name on that paper," Lily said, wondering how, exactly James had managed to pass into N.E.W.T. level Muggle Studies if that was really what he thought a Muggle-born student would miss about their pre-Hogwarts days.

"Then you did not say the words to him? You merely agreed to put your name on it?" The professor was obviously clever. That could be a problem.

"Is there a difference, Professor?" Lily was not willing to have James fail this project just because she had refused to tell him that his answer was idiotic.

"The point of this project was to let these students learn about the cost of magic to Muggle-born students," the professor explained. "If you weren't willing to tell him the truth, you should have asked James to put someone else's name on the document."

"He doesn't want to know what I gave up." Lily looked steadily at the professor. "He never did."

"And that is why he must." The professor leaned forward, he beady eyes shrewd. "In times of such high tension between the two worlds, it is imperative that both people understand. If you choose not to explain the cost of coming to Hogwarts -- not the price in galleons that everyone knows, but the real cost of it -- then the other students will never know."

"They don't _have_ to know," Lily replied. Who was the woman anyway? Just some pushy professor who had no idea what Lily gave up. Not really.

"You aren't protecting them with your silence. You're helping the Dark Lord," the professor said. Lily straightened in her seat. "He wants people to think that Muggle-borns are of a lower race, unworthy. We must stand together and prove that we are made of stronger metal than he wishes."

"You're a Muggle-born?" 

"Yes."

"Oh," Lily said, looking down at her interlocked hands.

"Yes, 'oh.' Do you care to explain yourself?" The professor tapped the parchment on the desk.

Lily began to think. Why hadn't she told James the truth? Had it just been a rash decision or was it what this woman said, that Lily was trying to protect her friends? "I guess you realized whipped cream in a bottle was pretty ridiculous, huh?"

"Not the worst that I received," the professor said, "though most of the others didn't use real students."

Lily sat for a moment looking at this woman who was too short and too wide and too too many things for Lily to count and consider. Did she really think that by staying silent that Lily was helping Voldemort? Was she honestly suggesting that Lily ought to have explained about the way keeping the secret of magic had cost Lily her childhood friends, her sister, and (though she would never admit it or talk about) her parents?

"He asked me if he could use my name, told me what he'd written, and I just couldn't be bothered to correct him," Lily finally said. "I didn't think he cared."

"No one will care unless you make them."

"Well, Professor," Lily said, standing, "I'll think about what you said. You won't fail James on this project, will you? Because, I mean, while he suggested it, I didn't refute it. I could have."

"I won't fail him, though I may suggest he speak with you again." The professor put the parchment down.

Lily nodded, though secretly she wanted to scream at the woman that she couldn't tell James to talk to her, that she ought to never suggest that James seek Lily out for any reason at all, but maybe Professor Carpenter was right. Maybe, at the end of the day, Lily needed to stop pushing people away and start letting them know what she really gave up. Wasn't that what Gertrude was always saying? 

 

 

 

**~*~*~**

 

Lily did not go back to the common room right away. In fact, well after curfew had fallen, Lily found herself sitting on the ledge of the Astronomy Tower, feet dangling over the edge bouncing against the wall as Lily sought recognizable constellations in the skies. Her wand in one hand, covered in a pleasant Warming Charm, Lily could not help but wonder what had become of her life. And then feel like a terrible cliché for wondering.

But all she knew was that her family no longer knew her, and she no longer knew them. Her sister was engaged to a man Lily had never met. Her mother and father were people she wrote carefully constructed letters to once a week out of obligation. She omitted all mention of magic and classes and lessons because she knew they wouldn't understand, and all that meant was that her letters were never complete. Her family never really knew everything about Lily's life.

It wasn’t better that way. They could think of magic as something blindly wonderful and that would be good.

Swiveling around and sliding off the wall, Lily straightened her robes and began her long journey back to the common room.

Wishing she had her badge to light, just in case she was caught, Lily hurried  through the main corridors, knowing that Filch avoided them in favor of the 'secret' passageways that second years tended to find and believe they were the first to discover. Lily walked past the portrait of the Balancing Ballerina and the Dancing Bear, but just as she was about to step off a staircase in front of the Fat Lady, it turned and Lily found herself looking at a corridor on the opposite side.

"No," Lily said, looking at the steps. "I don't know how to get back from here. Take me back. Please? I just want to go to bed."

But the staircase did not move. Petulantly, Lily glared and muttered some obscenities.

"Look, Lily's gone crazy."

Jumping and pointing her wand in the direction of the disturbance, Lily found herself ready to fight Matt and Christine.

"Staircase not where you want it to be?" Matt asked, smiling. Lily shook her head and smiled, lowering her wand and slowing her heartbeat.

"What were you doing out?" Lily asked Christine. Matt, she assumed because of his lit badge, had been patrolling.

"Snogging," Christine replied.

"With that same Ravenclaw?" Lily asked. Christine had quite a few passing flings. This one had seemed to last over a month.

"Yes," Christine replied. Matt was giving her a knowing smirk.

"So are you dating him, then?" Lily asked, joining them in the corridor so that they could lower their voices.

"No," Christine said, shaking her head, causing her long blonde hair to swing.

"They are dating," Matt mock-whispered to Lily. "Stumpy just doesn't like commitment words like dating or boyfriend."

"Really?" Lily looked at Christine. "Are you exclusive?"

"I don't know. I don't want to talk about this." Christine began to walk past Lily and Matt, but Matt grabbed her wrist and gently pulled her back, then turned to address Lily.

"Yes. They're exclusive. Or, at least, he is," Matt replied, looking at Lily though he never let go of Christine, who had a smile on her face.

And then Lily clicked.

"Matt's the Ravenclaw!"

"True," Christine said, nodding.

"Really?" Lily asked, smiling at the idea. She looked at Matt and saw him nod too. "For how long?"

"Ew. Why would someone count?" Christine asked, smile dropping off her face. "Except for a date for the anniversary. Then it might be important."

"Yes, for the presents," Lily said jokingly. "So how long has it been, Matt?"

"Feels like forever," Matt complained mock-sadly. Even if Lily hadn't caught the joking tone of his words, she could have seen that he was happy with Christine because his hand had moved off of Christine's wrist and was now resting on the small of her back, where Lily couldn't see it. But she could see Christine's smile grow as she moved to rest her head in the space between his shoulder and neck. He was tall, but Christine was not much shorter.

"Have you told anyone?" Lily asked.

"Why would we?" Christine asked, looking honestly confused.

"No," Matt said. His white teeth shining out from that ever-present smile. Had Lily never noticed the way they both seemed to glow around one another? (And it wasn't just that they both had blonde, almost Veela-like hair.) They looked happy. They looked complete. Lily felt a brief pang of jealousy. She wanted that. She wanted that very much.

"Are you trying to keep it a secret?" Lily asked.

"No," Christine replied, stepping away from Matt and beginning to walk in the direction of the staircase that Lily had just vacated.

"Then why not tell people?" Lily asked, following her friend.

Christine craned her head around to look at Lily. “Why would we do that?”

"She really doesn't understand," Matt said as he fell into step beside her. As on the day the three of them had sneaked out to Hogsmeade, Lily found herself feeling completely relaxed as she walked beside the Head Boy and followed her tallest friend onto a staircase she didn't recognize.

"You tell people so that everyone knows you're not available," Lily said, loud enough for Christine to hear.

"I'm still available," Christine piped up from in front.

"Stumpy has commitment issues," Matt explained to Lily, not seeming disturbed by Christine's exclamation, almost as if he knew that she was not actually still available.

Lily smiled. "So I'm guessing you're not on patrol?"

"Oh. I am," Matt said, "but when Diana and I found Christine, one of us had to take her back to her common room and Diana insisted that I do so. She thought she'd heard someone in a room down the corridor and she knew I was sometimes too lenient."

"Well, there's one benefit to no one knowing," Lily said, laughing briefly. The Head Girl was a fool. Then again, Lily hadn't realized her too good friends were dating either, so she was probably a fool too.

"Diana took ten points from me," Christine said, turning around and heading back toward Lily and Matt, then walking right past them. The pair looked at each other, shrugged, and then turned around and followed her.

"You took off points?" Lily asked, looking at Matt.

"You Gryffindors must learn to not be out to late," Matt said as Christine sat down on a stair in the middle of a staircase. He sat behind her a couple of stairs. "Speaking of which, I think we caught you too."

"Oh," Lily replied, sitting down, "but I was--"

"Liar," Christine interrupted, leaning against Matt's legs.

"I haven't even said anything," Lily protested, resting her head on the railing.

"Pre-emptive strike."

"You're the weirdest person I know," Lily said. "Speaking of which, why are we sitting here?"

"We're waiting to go back to Gryffindor Tower," Christine replied as if it were obvious.

"And sitting here will do that?" Lily asked.

"Yes."

And so they sat and waited for the staircase to move back to the Gryffindor Tower corridor. They talked about Quidditch and dating and anniversaries and commitment issues. That night, Matt McGrath, Christine O'Connell, and Lily Evans sat on a staircase that was attached to the wrong corridor and talked for the first time in a long time about the way life was supposed to be. When the staircase detached itself it did not go to the Gryffindor corridor, but it went to one that was close enough and the three set off.

"So how'd you get together?" Lily finally asked.

"I kissed him," Christine said. Lily grinned; her friend did hate to explain things clearly, didn't she? But maybe it really was that simple: one kiss and then a lifetime of friendship changed into something more.

Lily wanted to ask if they were scared, if they feared losing the easy friendship they'd shared since Tracy and Christine met over six years ago. Didn't Matt and Christine wonder what would happen if it didn't all work out?

But walking beside the pair of them, Lily knew that they weren't wondering about the future. They were just walking with a friend down an old corridor after curfew, waiting to reach a common room they did not share. And to Lily, it made perfect sense.

It was funny to think that at the beginning of this school year, Lily had considered Matt a fringe friend, connected only through Tracy, and Christine was her most distant best friend. Now, no more than five months later, they were two of only a handful of people with whom Lily felt genuinely comfortable.

"Am I the only one that knows about you two?" Lily asked, as Christine whispered the password to the Fat Lady.

"Dunno," Christine replied. The portrait swung open, muttering about students wandering the corridors at night.

"Probably," Matt said. Neither one of them looked particularly scared about the fact that Lily now knew their secret.

"I won't tell anyone," Lily promised, holding the portrait open to address them.

"We know," Christine said, rolling her eyes.

"I feel kind of special, being the only one that knows. And I figured it out all on my own," Lily said, grinning.

"Well, you are the top student in your year," Matt said, smirking.

"I'm--" Lily began protesting.

"Liar!" Christine and Matt interrupted together, Matt's tone mocking Christine as a grin curved his lips.

Lily left them then, smiling to herself. Yes, they made sense. 

 

**~*~*~**

The next day, Lily didn’t receive a response owl from Petunia. Not that she'd expected to. Beavendean was far from Scotland and bird travel would take awhile. She knew all of that and yet she was still a tad disappointed.

In the Transfiguration lesson, Professor McGonagall began by introducing protective transfiguration.

"Does anyone know what protective transfiguration involves?" Professor McGonagall asked as if she hadn't just lectured on it the previous Friday. A few students raised their hands.

"Yes, Miss Wrightman?" McGonagall said. Lily turned in her seat to look at Gertrude, surprised that the Slytherin prefect had raised her hand. Gertrude never spoke out in Transfiguration. Or ever, basically.

"Protective transfiguration involves transfiguring an object into an exact copy of itself except stronger, with charms and defensive spells imbedded into the material," Gertrude answered.

"Good. Anything more?" McGonagall asked, scanning her eyes over the students.

Lily, who was seated near the front on the left side of the room, took the time to look over everyone too. Tracy, seated beside her, had her hand raised. As did quite a few others. Lily felt vaguely bad for not raising her hand, since she knew the answers, so she raised her own hand too.

"Yes, Mr. Underwood?"

Lily turned, surprised to find that she did not recognize the name.

"You can also use protective spells when transfiguring an object into a completely different object. It ensures that it will remain transfigured and that other spells will have less effect on the object," said the boy sitting next to Gertrude, who Lily recognized as the other Slytherin prefect. She'd forgotten. His name was Barbantio Underwood. "But it is a difficult task. It requires the combination of Charm, Defensive, and Transfigurative magics."

"Correct. Ten points to Slytherin for the collective answers," Professor McGonagall said, nodding in their direction before beginning to ask for volunteers to demonstrate the proper hand motion, which was the one used for conjuring and shining objects. Of course Jodie the Ravenclaw prefect automatically raised her hand and was chosen. She was always ready to volunteer (and to brownnose, though Lily didn't mention that).

Lily lowered her head the moment the girl stood in front of the class. Jodie was already holding her wand the wrong way. So Lily took out her book and flipped through the pages until the section they were covering was before her. Then, of course, Professor McGonagall noticed she wasn't paying attention and called her on it.

"Miss Evans, please explain to the class what just happened with the demonstration."

Oh, if a tone could cast a freezing hex, Lily wouldn't thaw until June. Lily looked up, first at McGonagall and then briefly at Jodie, before meeting McGonagall's eye again.

"The wand motion was wrong," Lily said. She was only half-guessing. The motion wasn't possible with the wrong grip.

"Correct," McGonagall said, eyes narrowing. She knew Lily hadn't been paying attention. "Would you care to demonstrate the proper technique?"

"All right," Lily said, knowing that McGonagall was commanding more than asking. The woman was a brilliant teacher, a genius of a witch, and absolutely terrifying. No one got away with anything in her class. Lily sometimes wondered why the male half of her year dared to pull so many pranks in front of this woman.

Lily stood in front of the class and smiled at them all before casting her eyes over the desk for the object she was supposed to use the spell on. Nothing was obvious, so she conjured a small stone and cast the spell.

" _Protegitius Sustium_ ," she said, making the appropriate double loop. The rock shimmered briefly before reappearing in the same spot without a visible difference. "Not exactly fireworks, is it?"

"Very good, Miss Evans," said Professor McGonagall, "but you were only supposed to demonstrate the hand motion. Demonstrating the spell could have been dangerous if you hadn't performed the hand motion correctly. Five points from Gryffindor for carelessness."

Sometimes, Lily really felt like Professor McGonagall hated her.

"Sorry, Professor," Lily said, lowering her eyes to the rock. At least she had made it work.

"Please see me after class, Miss Evans," Professor McGonagall said, walking forward and picking up the stone. Addressing the class, McGonagall said, "Pair up and practice the hand motion with the stones on the table and the shining charm."

Standing in front of the class, Lily watched the pairing happen quickly. Christine paired with Remus Lupin, who'd only gotten back that day. Tracy joined Sirius Black. By the time Lily even had a chance to ask someone to partner up, the only people left unpaired were Severus Snape and James Potter.

Maybe she could just work on her own and have James and Snape work together. Then Lily could join Christine and Remus Lupin's group and be at least moderately more comfortable than she would be with either of her current options.

A glance at McGonagall told her that wasn't an option.

Well, fine then.

Lily wasn't a coward. Nope. Not at all. 

She joined James was a graceful nod, determined to make the situation less awkward. Determined to pretend like nothing had happened, like he hadn't been avoiding her and their Wednesday study sessions because he knew she was obsessed with him. Okay. Deep breath.

"Need a partner?" Lily asked. Yes. That was a good opening line. Cool. Concise. Straight to the point. Lily felt like throwing up.

"Yes." Good. He looked a little green around the edges. That served the dual purpose of making him look less attractive and letting Lily know that this wasn't a comfortable situation for him either. That brightened Lily's day a touch. 

And so Lily sat down next to James Potter and waited for him to start shining the stone. After a moment of him doing nothing, Lily looked over and found his attention (and gaze) on Tracy and Sirius. Oh, that caused a pang of jealousy all right, but one that Lily determinedly ignored.

"Do you want to go first?" Lily offered, feeling quite generous to have opened a dialogue between them again.

"It's all right. You can start," James said, nodding toward the stone and still not meeting her gaze.

"Okay." She leaned forward and 'shined' the stone. James un-shined it and then practiced his own shining charm.

"I feel like we're in the wrong class," James muttered, upset with his lackluster result.

Lily didn't reply. Maybe he hadn't been talking to her. Maybe he'd just been muttering to himself. Either way, responding only made her feel sort of ill. All right, very ill. He was sitting there next to her (her best friend's boyfriend) knowing that she had lusted after him. Ack. This sucked. A lot. Why hadn't Tracy partnered with him? Hmmm?

Lily shined and un-shined the stone.

James failed again, his thumb was too far back on the wand. He'd have done fine with regular Transfiguration with that grip, but this spell needed a slight change.

"Do you have a suggestion?" James asked, catching her watching his grip. Lily shook her head.

"No." Definitely not. Nope. Never.

"You could tell me if you see something I ought to change," James continued, sounding like he was talking about more than Transfiguration. "I can listen."

Lily watched him try once more, shining the stone but not as well as he might have hoped. He tried a few more times, finally growing so frustrated that he just transfigured the entire thing into a diamond and back.

"Wow," Lily said involuntarily.

"What?" James asked.

"The diamond. That was great."

"Just stone to stone transfiguration. We learned that in second year," James grumped. If it had been anyone else, Lily might have thought that comment was humble. Coming from James, it sounded like condescension.

"The tougher the stone, the harder the transfiguration and the more power it requires," Lily said equally condescendingly. "I couldn't done that."

"So you think I'm powerful?" James asked with a toss of his head. Lily shook her head at his sheer stupidity and arrogance and looked down at the rock, casually un-shining it.

"You sound so stupidly arrogant sometimes," Lily said, feeling brave. But if he was dating her best friend, the least Lily could do was to get over her crush (read: obsession) and start acting like a normal human being around him, which meant she would have to start talking to him. After all, she was probably going to see a lot more of him iffy kept dating Tracy.

"Excuse me?"

"You say some really stupid things," Lily said. Okay. So he knew she liked him. Lily wanted to make sure he also knew that she didn't think he was perfect. "And I have to believe you don't think before speaking, because if you think and if you are really that conceited, I should just leave."

"Run away again?" James asked with an edge.

"I shouldn’t have run. You’re right," Lily said, shining and un-shining the stone. "But even that... you could’ve handled differently too."

"Are you done berating me now?"

"I don't mean to berate you," Lily said, embarrassed and awkward. 

“And yet you spent five minutes doing so."

"Well, I guess I should work on that," Lily replied, still shining and un-shining the rock.

"Why does this have to be so bloody difficult?" James asked, slouching in his chair and his eyes staring hard at the stone.

"What's so difficult?"

"This -- you and me talking -- why is it so hard?" He sounded honestly confused, like the question wasn't a rhetorical one.

Well, if he thought Lily was about to answer that question, he had another think coming. Lily was not about to rehash the fact that James was ignoring her, glaring at her, and generally being uncomfortable around her because he knew she liked him. Instead, Lily kept shining and un-shining the stone, creating pretzel motions with her wand. Until, that is, James reached over and pinned her wand to the table with his own and began to speak.

Lily couldn’t hear over the rush of fear. She yanked her arm back, twisted her wand free and, in a single movement, placed the point of her wand between his eyes in an offensive stance.

"Whoa. Calm down," he said, holding up his hands and cutting off the spell she'd begun. "I just wanted you to stop shining the damn thing."

"Right. Yes. Of course. Sorry," Lily muttered, lowering her wand to her side and blushing. Her hands were shaking from the rush of adrenaline. "I'm just jumpy. Tired or something."

"Or you were attacked by Death Eaters and I forgot and made a stupid gesture that seemed like an attack," James said apologetically. Lily eyes snapped open, locking on his.

"What?"

"Oh," he said, lifting his hand and running it through his hair in that way that irritated Lily because she found it so attractive. She needed to stop thinking about James as attractive. This was her best friend's boyfriend. "Was that another stupid comment?"

"No," Lily replied, smiling slightly. "That was a brilliant comment."

"Are you being sarcastic?"

"No. For once, that was sincere."

"Really?"

"Really," Lily said, willing her hands to stop shaking. “Everyone keeps tiptoeing around it. Allusion or metaphor and—“ She took a breath and the air felt impossibly fresh and cool. She had been attacked. “Yeah.”

"Okay," he replied. He seemed to want to say so much more. It was as if a flood of words and sentences and thoughts were being held at bay within him, wanting so desperately to leak out and reach Lily. But instead of any of those comments, James turned to the rock and said, "What am I doing wrong?"

So Lily told him about his thumb and showed him where to put it on the wand, but never gave into the temptation to just move his fingers herself because she kept feeling Tracy's eyes flitter over to watch the pair of them. Seriously, why hadn't Tracy just worked with him? 

 

**~*~*~**

 

"I don't understand you, Miss Evans."

 _That is a shame,_ Lily did not say aloud. The class had been dismissed and Professor McGonagall was in the process of giving Lily her dressing down.

"You're a brilliant student, but you never volunteer. You blatantly pay no attention to demonstrations and yet are prepared to answer my questions." McGonagall looked at Lily critically. Lily waited. "How did you know what Miss Livingstone had done incorrectly? Did Miss McGrath tell you?"

"No," Lily replied, shrugging. "I saw the moment she stood up there that Jodie was holding her wand incorrectly for that spell."

"There is no mention of the correct grip in the book, Miss Evans," Professor McGonagall said tersely.

"Then I remembered from your lecture," Lily replied, waving off the irrelevant comment.

"I made no note of wand grip either." Well, that was a shock.

"Well," Lily amended, taking her own wand out and holding it the correct way, "look at the motion. Jodie couldn't have made the proper loop without having her hand turned at least a little to the right."

"Have you studied this spell before?"

"I listened to your lecture and did the homework assignment," Lily replied. "And I'm sorry about not paying attention, but it's difficult to watch someone demonstrate the wrong way."

McGonagall's mouth thinned. "Then why didn't you interrupt and correct her?"

Lily scoffed at that. It was obviously not the response the professor had wanted, but Lily couldn't help herself. Correct Jodie? In front of the class? Ha!

"I don't see the humor in the situation, Miss Evans."

"I'm sorry, Professor. I didn't mean to laugh," Lily said. "It's just that correcting a student would make me look like a ridiculous show off and a braggart."

"No, Miss Evans. It would look like you studied hard, paid attention in class, and cared about the learning experience of your fellow students." Professor McGonagall's voice sounded annoyed as she continued. "You cannot continue to hide in the middle of the class, Miss Evans. I know your scores on your exams and have even discussed your performance with my colleagues. Professor Flitwick, in particular, speaks highly of you. We have all noticed your talent and your leadership abilities."

_What leadership ability?_

"Why do you think I nominated you for the prefect position?" McGonagall asked.

 _Because I was the only one that would take it?_ Lily thought. Sam didn't want it. Tracy would have ignored the responsibility. Christine would have forgotten it.

"I understand, Professor," Lily said, though she didn't. "I'm sorry."

The two parted ways shortly after that, nothing really resolved.

 

**~*~*~**

 

It had been a weird day. Actually, a weird week. Remus had spoken during patrol. Petunia had gotten engaged. Sam and Tracy disappeared for hours on end to 'talk.' Christine and Matt were dating. And so, when Lily went up to her dorm to study that Monday night, though she was shocked and freaked out, she wasn't all-together too confounded by the presence of Christian Knowles on a broom knocking on her window.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Lily asked, running up and opening the window, grateful that the dorm was empty.

"I need to talk to you," he said, flying inside and stepping on the ground.

"And owling me was too simple?" Lily asked.

"This isn't something that ought to be discussed by owl," Christian said, holding his broom in one hand. He looked disheveled. And gorgeous. Let's not forget gorgeous.

"How far did you fly?" Lily asked, trying not to remember how much fun kissing him had been. Her hormones were getting out of control.

"Not far. I flooed to Hogsmeade and then bought this broom and flew here," he explained.

"Of course," Lily said, putting her hands on her hips, "because owling wasn't an option, walking seemed blasé, and only commoners bring their own brooms into the floo network."

"Lily, I need to talk to you about the Ball--"

"You couldn't have even owled to let me know you were coming?" Lily asked, growing more and more frustrated.

"I shouldn't have brought you there," Christian continued as if Lily hadn't interrupted.

"Because if you'd owled me I could have at least met you somewhere that wasn't also my bedroom."

"It's my fault you were attacked."

"Somewhere where-- What?" Lily stopped her rant as she finally processed his words.

"It's my fault."

"Oh. Is your name secretly Voldemort?"

Christian flinched, eyes widening enough to cover the bags under his eyes. "I'm serious, Lily."

"That, at least, I believe," Lily said. "You're always serious. But you're also randomly in my dormitory during dinner hours in a country where you don't go to school. Forgive me if I don't think you're exactly in your right mind at the moment."

"It was Ian," Christian said. "I think he tricked me into bringing you. I think he works for Voldemort."

"Hey, Ranting Boy," Lily cut him off, feeling a sharp stab of anger though she did not know why, "you need to calm the hell down."

"I am calm," Christian said. "I've been thinking about this for a month. Longer than that. Why did I invite you? Sophie would have gone with me and you broke my heart. So why was I there? Why were you there? Why had Jacob called me away just when the Death Eaters arrived? You were there, and you were alone, and that is my fault."

"Christian. Stop." Fear was grabbing at Lily. Christian sounded crazy.

"No. Lily, Ian told me to bring you, but he didn't go. I think he knew."

"Shut up. Shut up!" Lily yelled. Her voice seemed to have shocked her ex-boyfriend into silence. She took his head in her hands and brought it down so that she was looking him in the eye. "Listen to me. Ian is a good friend and a good person. But even if that weren't the case, he is a Muggle-born. He does not work for Voldemort."

"He's not a Muggle-born," Christian replied, lifting his hands and covering Lily's so that she could not remove them from his face. "His family only lives in a Muggle neighborhood. He's a pureblood."

"Well," Lily said, thinking quickly, "even if that's true, it doesn't change anything. Ian's been a good friend to both of us."

"Don't you think it's odd that we met in a grocery store? Don't you think it was convenient?"

"No," Lily replied. "I was looking for bananas and so were you."

"But why were we there? We hadn't even planned on going until that day," Christian continued.

"And I hadn't planned on being there until ten minutes beforehand. That's how grocery shopping works," Lily answered. But a thoroughly guilt-ridden and panicked Christian did not want to believe Lily. They sat for hours together, talking things through, calming his frayed nerves until well after sunset and her roommates tried to enter the room. Lily had told them all to come back later.

In the meantime, Christian told Lily about what happened right after the Ball, the details she hadn't known: cameramen waiting at the exit and taking pictures of the injured guests, Aurors taking over and _scourgifying_ all of the film and _oblivating_ the reporters. He told her about being healed and sent out of the hospital in less than an hour, the staff telling him that he couldn't see Lily, that she was being worked on.

He sat at the hospital for hours, waiting for her to heal, waiting for the nurse to come out and say that they were done working on Lily, but by the time the next day dawned and she still wasn't allowed visitors, Christian knew something was really wrong. He'd never heard of the healers taking more than a few hours to heal someone that was permanently damaged. He had thought she was dead, and he realized that it was his fault.

But the Auror Director had come to speak with him, reassuring him that Lily would be fine, asking about what had happened at the Ball. Christian said he barely remembered talking to the woman. He only remembered the moment his father had arrived, sweeping into the hospital and telling the woman off for asking Christian for a statement without an attorney present.

Christian had told his father about Lily's state, about the way nurses and healers ran in and out of her room all the time, never letting him in. Mr. Knowles had found the director of the hospital and insisted that Lily's parents be notified and brought in. It turned out that Mr. Knowles was one of the largest donators to the hospital, and when he suggested something, it happened. That was how Mr. and Mrs. Evans had defied a lifetime of tradition and entered the wards of St. Mungo's Hospital.

"I didn't know," Lily said, shocked. "I knew them coming was different, but I hadn't known what it took."

"The Aurors picked up your parents, and I wanted to stay and talk with them, but the Ministry Official said that I would be hampering an ongoing investigation. Father took me home. I tried to owl you, but they came back unopened." Christian's perfect features were etched with guilt. Lily wanted to reach out and touch his face, reassure him.

"One of the guests was sent letter that blew up," Lily explained. "We weren't allowed any mail after that."

He nodded and told her how worried he'd been. Christian told her about the guilt her felt, knowing that Lily was only at the Ball because of him, and Lily told him that she had never even thought of being angry with him about that.

"You didn't?" he asked.

"Not even for a moment," she replied, wondering how he could have thought she would. Well, she had snapped at him at the Inquisition, but that had been because he hadn't owled her at all after the Ball. Obviously, he'd been frantic, though.

Christian said, "But I brought you and then--"

"And then Voldemort attacked," Lily finished. "Voldemort. Not you. It wasn't like you turned around and started lobbing chairs at me or anything."

"But I wasn't there to protect you." And the sadness in Christian's voice endeared him to Lily all over again. She leaned toward him (by this point they were both sitting on the ledge under the window) and wrapped him in a hug.

"You didn't have to protect me," Lily murmured against his shoulder.

"I should have."

But Lily knew Christian better than he thought she did. Yes, he wanted to have protected her. Yes, he would have thought he was, but Lily knew that he would have thought grabbing her hand and the first available Portkey would have been enough. And, though this seemed a strange moment to realize it, Lily finally came to comprehend the fact that Christian wasn’t what she wanted at all in a boyfriend. Instead of someone who would pull her out of the thick of things, she wanted someone who would have jumped into the middle and stood beside her, casting a shield too.

"Christian," Lily began, leaning back, "you can't do this to yourself. You can't blame yourself and suspect your friends. You can't. You'll drive yourself mad."

"But when I heard you were in the hospital for over a week, I just--" He didn't finish the sentence. He never would.

"Ian is one of your best friends," Lily said. "One of my best friends too."

"I know, and I suppose I never really suspected him, but I need to blame someone. Someone has to be at fault."

"Voldemort is at fault, he and his Death Eaters. No one else." Christian nodded but did not reply. Lily stood, her back killing her, and said, "It's late. My roommates are probably already asleep in the common room. Why don't I go ask the blokes if you can have a bed, and--"

"No. It's all right," Christian said, standing too. "I'll rent a room in town."

"That's stupid. Just stay here."

"No. I'd feel uncomfortable. I already feel uncomfortable, making such a scene in front of you," Christian said, obviously embarrassed by the tears he had shed and the accusations he had flung. "But I'm glad I talk to you."

"Me too. Will you be okay to fly?"

"Yes," Christian said, picking up his broom.

"How did you know where to Floo to anyway?" Lily asked, suddenly curious. Wasn't the castle supposed to be unplotted?

"Gertrude Wrightman told me the name of the town."

"What?" Lily asked. "How do you know Gertrude?"

"We grew up together," Christian said, looking at Lily curiously. "Do you know her?"

"I know of her. She's a prefect."

"Yes, of course. I knew that," Christian said, smiling slightly before it faded from his face.

"Well, come on, you can't very well mount your broom in here. Let's at least go into the common room and have you fly out a proper window," Lily suggested, leading Christian out the door, down the stairs, and into the common room. He gave her a tight hug -- the first since they had broken up -- a quick kiss on the cheek and then he was gone, flying out the window.

She heard a slamming door and turned to look at the boy's dormitory door, where she spotted Tracy giving her an exasperated look.

"Was that Hottie?" came Christine's voice near the fireplace.

"Yeah," Lily said, looking out the window and pondering their conversation, wishing she could have wiped the sadness from his eyes, the hollow look that haunted his gaunt face. Still the best looking bloke in any room, but sad now. Diminished. What utter shit it was that Voldemort had done that to him.

"How'd he get here?" Christine asked. She and Tracy appeared to be the only other people in the common room at the moment.

"I have no effing idea. Zero." He couldn't really have come all this way just to talk about guilt issues, could he? And why had it been Gertrude that told him where to floo?

"Did he come here for a snog?"

"He goes to school in France," Lily replied as if that were the most important reason why that wasn't plausible.

"So?"

"So you really think he came all this way just for a snog?"

"True. Was it a shag then?" Christine asked. Lily stared incredulously at Christine.

"Yes," Lily replied sarcastically. "That's it. That's what we've been doing for the last few hours: shagging."

"If you weren't shagging, what were you doing?" Tracy asked, finally joining the conversation.

"Talking. A lot."

"About what?" Tracy asked as the door to the boys' dorm reopened and Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew stepped out.

"What's going on down here?" Sirius asked.

"Lily and her ex-boyfriend just came out of the girls' dorms, and we were all wondering what happened," Tracy replied in a tone Lily did not like.

"Oh," Sirius said, smiling and looking at Peter. "That explains it then."

"Yep," Peter agreed, shaking his head at Lily. It looked like they were passing judgment on Lily. How effing annoying.

"Wait. Why was he here if not to shag?" Christine asked, still looking confused. Sirius and Peter leaned closer, too, as if curious about this answer. Stupid buggers. Why should they care about her life? She didn't know them.

"He wanted to talk about New Year's," Lily answered.

"Why couldn't he have owled you?" Sirius asked. Lily's eyes locked on his and she suddenly had a great idea.

"I don't know, but I want to find out," Lily said, marching up to Sirius Black. "I bet you know the way to the Slytherin common room."

"You don't?" Sirius asked, feigning great surprise.

"Can you take me there?"

"Well," Sirius began, casting his eyes over Lily's shoulder. When she turned, she found Tracy nodding. Sirius nodded back, pointing to the boys' dorm.

"Hey!" Lily exclaimed. "The nodding-silent-message-thing is annoying. Stop it."

"I can take you there," Sirius said, dragging his eyes back on Lily.

"Good. Let's go," Lily said, walking toward the portrait. When she realized Sirius wasn't beside her, she turned to find Sirius talking to Tracy and Peter. Both nodded before heading to the boys' dorm door. Lily felt another stab of jealousy. Tracy was going to chat with James, probably to explain about Sirius disappearing.

"Sirius, can we go now?" Lily called over to him.

"Where are you going?" Christine asked.

"The Slytherin common room."

"Have fun!" Christine called back, standing and moving toward the girls' dorm, making Lily wonder exactly where Sam was.

As the pair walked outside the common room and into the dark corridor, they were silent. Questions raced through Lily's head. Why had Christian cared if she blamed him? How dare he presume to tell her who to blame? Why Ian? What was wrong with him? The silence stretched out, prodding her unfettered doubts, until she began to doubt herself.

"Do you really know how to get to their common room?" Lily asked.

"Does a hippo secretly want to dance with sugar plum fairies?" Sirius replied, placing his hand on the small of her back and leading her down the corridor. Lily twisted away from his touch.

"So your boyfriend came to visit?" Sirius asked after a half-minute of silence.

"Ex-boyfriend," Lily corrected automatically.

"But you hugged him and he kissed you," Sirius said, sounding doubtful.

She looked at him curiously. "How do you know that?"

"I'm a Seer," he said, deadpan. Lily scoffed, and Sirius asked, "How do you know I'm not telling the truth?"

"I'm a Seer," Lily answered sarcastically as she ducked under the outstretched arm of a suit of armor.

"How could we not have known that about each other? Shameful, that is, not knowing how much we have in common. We ought to get to know one another a little better."

"Eff that," Lily said dismissively. "Talking will only attract Filch."

"Brilliant," Sirius muttered, smiling and nodding his head as if approving Lily for the first time. Like she was something that needed approving.

"Why are you so bloody happy? A few weeks ago you were moody and throwing things. Go back to that," Lily said, grumpy about this whole situation. "Sulky is silent."

"And bitter is not sexy," Sirius said, flopping a hand in her direction.

"I'm allowed to be bitter," Lily said. _I had my heart broken recently by your best friend and now my ex-boyfriend randomly showed up outside my window and Gertrude knew about it. I'm allowed to be cranky, at the very least._

"Listen, if you're still upset about the James thing--"

"You know about that?" Lily asked, horrified. Horrified. She stopped walking, standing on the main floor and just wanting her embarrassment to swallow her up.

"Of course. I'm his best mate." Sirius puffed up his chest and gently pushed Lily to start her walking again.

Lily moaned as her feet mechanically began moving again. "I don't even want to think about it. No one else knows, right?"

"About the recent developments? Just me."

"And Tracy," Lily added. "Do you know when it started then?"

"A few years ago."

Lily stopped moving again and just sat on the steps. James had started liking Tracy years ago? Years ago? Oh frick. And Lily had been throwing herself at him, practically, for years. Oh. And he was such a git at the beginning but then he got nicer, like he realized he needed to have Tracy's friends approve of him.

"Someone should just hex me," Lily moaned. Once more, Sirius grabbed her arm and pulled her forward until they were at the dungeon stairs.

"It's not all that bad," Sirius said, sounding annoyed. "He's a good guy."

"Not all that bad?" Lily repeated, wrenching her arm away from him as she started power walking away from him. "I've been obsessed with a boy who has liked one of my best friends for years and you don't think it's that bad? You don't think it's that bad that he knows I've been obsessed with him? I think this qualifies as 'That Bad.'"

"Wait a second," Sirius said, running to cut Lily off and stand before her. "What did you just say?"

"I said this situation is really bad and that I don't need you to belittle it!" Lily snapped, walking around him. "It's bad enough to know that he told you; it makes me ill to just think about in general."

"What are we talking about here, exactly?" Sirius asked slowly.

"I thought you knew," Lily said.

"I do," Sirius said earnestly. "I think you're confused."

"I'm not confused," Lily said, throwing her hands up in the air. "I know that James and Tracy are dating. I know that he figured out how I felt about him and felt badly about not liking me in return. And I know that I'm the world's biggest fool for chasing around after him for years, and you know what? I don't need you to tell me not to care."

A moment of glaring and staring (on the parts of Lily and Sirius respectively) passed. Then Lily walked on as a smile spread across Sirius's face.

"This is great," Sirius muttered.

Lily turned to face him. "What?"

"This is great!" Sirius exclaimed, rushing forward, picking up Lily and spinning her around. "You're just as confused as he is. This is wonderful."

"Hey, crazy guy," Lily snapped when he put her down, "I think we've covered how not wonderful this is for me."

"You say Tracy knows all about this?" Sirius said, walking again toward the dungeons and leading Lily down a corridor.

"I suppose it would be a bit hard for her to miss the fact that she herself is dating someone," Lily said, glaring at the floor.

"Yes, yes." Sirius made a dismissive motion as if to brush that aside. "But you've told her all this?"

"I didn't tell her, but I know she figured it out. She's the one that told James how I felt." Oh that was hard to admit. Overwhelming shame came back. This whole situation royally sucked. She hadn't spoken to Tracy in a long time, actually, and still felt badly about that. Yet she couldn't get over the humiliation just yet.

"So she knows what? That she's dating James or that you like him?" Sirius pressed.

"I should think both," Lily snapped. "Because she definitely knows how I feel-- felt about James, and if she doesn't know that she's dating him it would be a bit awkward, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, you have no idea," Sirius said, smiling at Lily. "This has been so informative, this walk. We ought to do this more often."

"Well, you know, our futures are tied together, so I'm sure we'll have time for a few more walks," Lily said bitterly.

"What?" he asked. "If you're asking me to date you, there's no way that'll ever happen."

"Wow. That was definitely not where I was going with that, and yet I still feel offended. Thanks for that. Really made this day better. Not that I want to date you, or really talk to you that much at this point, but what's so wrong with me? Tracy told me she didn't think any bloke at Hogwarts would date me. And let me tell you, that did nothing for my confidence."

"Oh," Sirius said, throwing an arm around Lily's shoulders again as he turned her to face a wall, "this is going to be so much fun."

"What is?" Lily asked, looking up at him suspiciously.

"Everything."

"All right, Mr. Cryptic, can we just get to the Slytherin common rooms?" Lily said, trying to dislodge herself from his grip and finding it impossible.

"This is it," Sirius said, gesturing at the wall.

"You have to be kidding me," Lily said flatly. "They got stuck with a wall? They couldn't have even had a tapestry?"

"I'm sure they like that they're so secret." 

"That's such a joke! The Slytherins always get the short end of the stick, don't they? I mean, a bloody wall?" Lily muttered, poking the wall with her wand.

"So why are we here?" Sirius asked, watching her poke the wall.

"I presume you're here to see me."

Both Sirius and Lily jumped and grabbed their wands, pointing them at the direction of the voice. But once they recognized the speaker, Lily immediately lowered her wand. Sirius did not.

"You're creepy, you know, the way you just appear places," Lily said, pocketing her wand.

"Hello, Lily, Sirius," Gertrude Wrightman said, stepping forward. Lily looked back and forth between them as Sirius lowered his wand but did not put it away.

"Do you know each other?" Lily asked.

"Our families are connected," Gertrude replied.

"Oh," Sirius said, sounding falsely cheerful, "didn't you hear, Gertrude? They aren't my family anymore. I've joined the ranks of Andromeda and company."

"Another scorch mark on a perfectly good wall," Gertrude said, shaking her head and causing her shoulder-length blonde hair to shimmer behind her.

"As of New Year's Eve, that's me: scorch mark seventeen," Sirius said in a deep, falsely cheerful tone.

Lily had just been complaining and generally not having a good day (a weird day to be sure, but not very good), and then she saw Gertrude and her day got better. But Sirius went from obnoxiously happy to guarded and testy. Why hadn't he done that earlier, when she asked him to?

Gertrude gave Sirius a narrow-eyed look of contempt. "You ran away from them."

Okay. So they definitely seemed to know one another.

Sirius waved his hand dismissively. "I disapproved of their beliefs."

"You turned your back on your heritage, your ancestors, and twenty generations of family." Oh dear. Lily knew Gertrude well enough to know that those were major do-nots. She valued pride and loyalty highly. What Lily hadn't known until that moment, as she watched Sirius Black's face turn a scary purple color, was that he did too.

"I turned my back on my current family," Sirius said in clipped tones, "and their current bigoted, arse-hole ideas of purity."

"You mean you turned your back on your Slytherin family." Gertrude's pale blue eyes locked on his silver ones.

"I didn't turn my back on my Slytherin family. Andromeda's a Slytherin. Uncle Alphard was a Slytherin. It's the rest I can't stand, no matter what house they were in. I'm not a Hufflepuff, Gertrude. I don't pledge loyalty blindly to a family whose beliefs I hate."

"I'll never be allowed to see you again in public, you know," Gertrude said. "It wouldn't be proper."

"It hasn't been proper since first year," Sirius returned, his voice changing from defensive to almost sad. Now Lily was really interested in what was happening.

"But it was at least acceptable," Gertrude said, "because of your history, because you were a Black. Now even that is gone."

"I chose a side. I don't regret that."

"I've chosen a side as well," Gertrude said, her eyes flicking over to Lily. And while Lily felt pleased to be acknowledged, it seemed that Sirius was not happy with the situation. He stepped in front of Lily, effectively blocking her from Gertrude's line of sight.

"No," he said. Lily leaned around him to give Gertrude a questioning look.

"Sirius, do you really think I was talking about hurting her?" Gertrude asked. Lily stepped to the side of him so that the three of them formed a triangle.

"Then what were you talking about?" he asked, cautious.

"I'm joining her side, Sirius," Gertrude declared. Lily threw her hair over her shoulders and struck a really self-congratulatory pose, trying to make them smile. It failed.

"Why?" Sirius asked, eyes still trained on Gertrude. "Why would you join a side you don't believe in?"

"Aren't you just a suspicious bloke?" Lily accused, causing him to stare at her. "What? Did you forget that I was here?"

"I have chosen the side that will win, Sirius." Gertrude looked at him for a long moment. "I have no desire to stand beside him as Rome burns."

Lily was very lost, but did know about Rome and felt a little proud of that. But who was the 'he' that Gertrude was talking about?

"What's that have to do with Lily?" Sirius asked.

"She cast a Shield Charm against Death Eaters to protect people she did not know," Gertrude said. It was almost comical, how quickly Sirius's head snapped toward Lily, who stood stiff and unyielding.

"When? Why? Are you an idiot?" Sirius asked.

"She went to a ball that both you and I were advised to avoid," Gertrude said. "A ball which, I assume, is part of the reason why you ran away."

"Of course it was!" Sirius exclaimed at Gertrude before addressing Lily. "Are you an idiot? You cast a shield? You went to the Ministry Ball?"

"Yes," Lily said, nodding. "I did. And yes, I cast a shield. It got attacked, and I got hurt."

"Of course you got hurt," Sirius said. "If you fight Death Eaters, you fight to win, not to survive. Never go defensive."

"Now there's a stupid strategy," Lily said. She turned to Gertrude. "I came to talk to you about that."

"Yes?"

"You cast a bloody shield at the Ministry Ball," Sirius muttered, tugging at his own hair, eyes hooded. Interesting, that.

"My ex-boyfriend visited me tonight, freaking the hell out of me, by the way. He dropped your name," Lily mentioned casually. "Said you'd told him to floo to Hogsmeade."

"Yes, Christian wanted to speak with you in person." Gertrude did not seem to feel guilty about failing to mention this to Lily.

"He asked if I knew you."

"And you said no, I assume," Gertrude said, smiling softly. But her eyes had a hard, approving, grateful look to them.

"Christian? Christian Knowles?" Sirius asked, looking at the Slytherin girl. When she nodded he turned to Lily. "Christian Knowles was the bloke you were with all holiday?"

"What the hell? How do you know Christian?"

"He's from an old family," Sirius said.

"Oh. And you know all the old families?" Lily scoffed.

"Yes."

"And her best friend is Samantha," Gertrude added, like that was important at all at that moment.

"And she's convinced you to join Dumbledore's side," Sirius muttered.

"Not Dumbledore's. Hers. I'll join her," Gertrude corrected in her clear, pronounced voice. "And you're walking with her too, aren't you?"

"For a friend," Sirius murmured.

"What friend?" Lily asked.

"And she worked with Timothy all of last year," Sirius said, almost to himself.

"Why do you know that? Or remember that?" Lily asked, hands on her hips. What was going on here? Why did these people care who she knew, who she was friends with? Why did Sirius, with whom she had never before spoken, know so much about her?

"Kevin, too," Gertrude said, a smile beginning to form on her lips. "They're good friends."

"Kevin Creggie?" Lily asked. "I really wish you people would stop with the cryptic business already. I don't like being ignored."

"She's connected to six," Sirius said, shaking his head.

"Six what?" Lily pressed.

"Six heirs," Sirius answered.

"Oh, well, you know," Lily said sarcastically as she remembered the Ministry and the orange eyed lady talking about heirs, "I have a checklist of heirs, and I just go around picking them up as friends."

"That would almost make more sense," Sirius said.

"Not to distract from the conversation that makes no sense, but why the hell was Christian here?" Lily asked Gertrude.

"He felt badly about leaving you behind. Men from families like Christian's do not do that," Gertrude explained. And Lily felt really weirded out. She couldn't believe he'd come all that way just to apologize. The boy had guilt issues, obviously.

"Was he warned?" Sirius asked, using the quietest voice Lily had ever heard him use, dark and low. It sent chills down her spine, and her fingers curled around the wand in her pocket.

"No," Gertrude said. "His parents would never have known."

"Can you be sure?"

"He would not have taken her, if he'd known," Gertrude said, finality in her tone. Lily assumed she was supposed to go back to twiddling her thumbs as these two talked in a code she wasn't privy to. How annoying.

"Hello. I came here to talk to Gertrude. You were meant to be the guide," Lily complained to Sirius. He looked at her, startled.

"You're right."

"Was there something else you wished to discuss?" Gertrude asked Lily.

"No," Lily admitted. "Well, unless you want to tell me what you were doing out of your dorm or how you knew we were here to meet you."

"I'm on patrol at the moment," Gertrude said, pointing to her lit badge, "and I assume that I'm the only Slytherin you would like to speak to in the middle of the night."

"Well, you and Snape, my secret lover," Lily said. Gertrude ignored her comment. Sirius seemed to choke on his own tongue. Then he started laughing.

"So where's your partner?" Lily asked. "Whose name I have already forgotten. What is wrong with me? McGonagall just said it today."

"He's escorting a couple of Ravenclaw boys back to their dorm."

"First years?"

"Yes."

"Chad and Will," Lily guessed, shaking her head.

"Yes," Gertrude confirmed. "I'd expected better of Chad Caldwell, at least."

"We better get going before your partner comes back," Sirius said, not looking scared or like he particularly care, but looking sincere nonetheless. Lily didn't really understand it.

"Are we still on for dinner tomorrow?" Lily asked.

"Yes," Gertrude said. "We ought to talk about what happened in Transfiguration today."

"Oh. I'm not very good at Transfiguration. You might want to ask-- well-- just about anyone rather than me," Lily said. Gertrude's eyes changed to a darker blue as she looked at Lily.

"Still too humble for your own good," Gertrude said, though Lily was sure Sirius hadn't heard her.

"If you need help, I know someone who could tutor you," Sirius said to Lily, his eyes twinkling.

"She doesn't need any help," Gertrude said. "You saw her at today's demonstration, didn't you, Sirius?"

He looked to be trying really hard to remember.

"The protective transfiguration," Gertrude prompted.

"Oh, that's right! That was brilliant. McGonagall was impressed."

Lily shook her head. "She was not."

"We have to go," Sirius said, ignoring Lily as he shifted his gaze from her to Gertrude, "before your disapproving, boring friend returns."

"And so the thing ends," Gertrude said, looking sadly and almost disapprovingly at Sirius.

"No," Sirius said, shaking his head as he grabbed Lily's wrist and started pulling her away. "I'll crash one of your dinners with Lily. Scorch mark be damned."

But though his words were light-hearted, they echoed with hurt. Gertrude's straight-backed posture didn't twitch, and Sirius unconsciously mimicked her. They both looked mad and a little ill.  

"And if I don't see you," Sirius said at the end of the corridor, "happy birthday."

By that time Gertrude had turned and walked back down a side corridor, out of sight, but out of neither one's mind.

"McGonagall, just for your information, was angry today, not impressed," Lily finally said, trying to break the silence that had descended on the pair of them.

"She looked like she wanted to give you a hundred points!" Sirius said.

"She took points away and made me stay after class in order to listen to a lecture about not living up to my potential."

"See? She cares," Sirius said. Lily didn't bother arguing. The boy was mental. "And that was an impressive show, really. Don't know why you say you're no good at Transfiguration."

"I'm not," Lily said.

"Well, that's just--"

Lily clamped her hand over his mouth and pulled him quickly into a niche in the wall. Motioning for him to remain silent, she peeked her head out and saw exactly what she'd suspected: Filch. Oh crap.

"What?" Sirius whispered. Oh, that idiot. Didn't he know the caretaker could hear a pin drop during a Quidditch game? Obviously not. Lily did some quick thinking and took what she considered to be the best course of action: she pushed Sirius into the middle of the corridor then cast a Cushioning Charm on the ground. The boy looked stunned, seemed to catch sight of Filch, and was just ready to run when Lily acted out the second half of her plan.

"Student out of bounds!" Lily yelled, launching herself at Sirius and tackling him to the ground. "That's what you get for breaking rules, you disrespectful miscreant!"

"What's this? What's happening?" Filch asked. He'd gotten there in a moment. Him and his damn anorexic cat.

"Oh. Mr. Filch, sir. I didn't see you there," Lily said, standing and wiping off her robes. "I'd have left him for you to take care of if I'd known."

The creepy old caretaker took in the scene before him: one of the school's most notorious pranksters lying on the ground in a heap and the redheaded prefect that cursed students handling the situation. He'd never wished he were a wizard more than at that moment, able to hex the boy. As it was, he wasn't even able to beat the students! But this girl didn't have to report directly to the headmaster. She'd never been caught for her punishments before.

"Evans?" Filch asked, confirming her identity.

"Yes, sir," Lily said.

"You'll see he's properly punished?"

"Of course."

"Like the Ravenclaw boy with welts?"

"Yes."

"And how many points from his house?"

"Fifty, sir," Lily said. "It would be more, but McGonagall set a limit."

The grungy man nodded at her, shot one last look at the student on the ground, and was about to say something when Peeves appeared and kicked him in the back of the head. He was chasing after the poltergeist a moment later, leaving Sirius and Lily, never noticing that she was lacking a badge.

Lily bent over and offered Sirius a hand. He looked at it with wide eyes, looked at her, and then got up himself.

"What the hell was that?" he asked, rubbing his hip as if it hurt.

"Well, I saw Filch, and then you spoke aloud and he was coming over so I took action," Lily said, starting to walk down the corridor. Sirius followed.

"Took action? You bloody well tackled me to the ground."

"Well," Lily said reasonably, "it wouldn't have had quite the same impact on Filch if I'd tried to tackle you and your shoulder hadn't touched the ground."

"You could have broken my shoulder!"

"Oh puh!" Lily flapped a hand at him. "I cast a Cushioning Charm on the ground. You were perfectly safe."

"And then he just left us alone, and what's this about taking fifty points off Gryffindor? And the Ravenclaw with welts?"

And so Lily explained about her relationship with Filch, about the way that Remus and she picked up the students he collected and convinced them to complain loudly about welts and bruises and beatings in general. The points, she said, were never actually taken off as she didn't actually have her badge on her.

"Just to be clear, you tackled me to the ground," Sirius recounted.

"Yep," Lily said, walking up to a wall and pushing the panel aside before walking forward.

"And then you convinced Filch not to take any points away or even give us a detention because you flat out lied to him," Sirius continued the story, following her into the secret passage.

"Yep," Lily lit her wand and kept walking. She heard feet jogging and then found Sirius's arm around her shoulders. He was a very touchy-feely person, wasn't he? Lily really wished he wasn't. She certainly wasn't. She had personal space and she liked it when other people respected those boundaries. Sirius did not.

"I am so glad to have met you, Lily."

"Um. Thanks?" Lily replied, unsure how she ought to reply to that statement as she ducked out of Sirius's grasp.

"No. Really. We're going to have a great time together."

"If that's your way of asking me out, I hope you know that'll never happen," Lily said, throwing his phrase from earlier that night back in his face.

"No. No. Not dating," Sirius replied, shaking his head and not seeming phased by her brilliant insult. "But I have this feeling like we'll be seeing a lot more of one another from now on."

"There is a joy in my heart that I can hardly suppress," Lily deadpanned.

Sirius laughed, smiling at Lily. "Oh yes. This'll be great."

"Your enthusiasm is a little overwhelming," Lily said, opening the other panel and stepping out.

"And you know about secret passageways, and there was that weird night when I thought we were under attack last year. Oh, I didn't believe him, but he was right about you. You are more than you appear."

"That's funny," Lily replied, stepping away from him a bit. "Gertrude once told me I was exactly as she expected, exactly as I appeared."

"Gertrude's a girl. Plus, she's observant. I just thought you were great at insulting James. It was fun to watch. Didn't know you were a spitfire all the time. I would have hung out with you more often."

"Oh, think of the years we missed," Lily said sardonically.

"Don't worry," Sirius replied cheerfully. "We'll make it up in the years to come!"

"Again with the overwhelming joy," Lily said, taking a left turn and beginning to climb a staircase that conveniently moved up a couple of levels, which meant it was closer to Gryffindor tower.

"I remember you yelling at James after the Defence O.W.L.s," Sirius recalled, and Lily felt like the air was sucked right out of her as a wave of embarrassment hit her. "James was so embarrassed after that. Oh yeah. That was great. But if you liked him, why were you yelling at him?"

"Could we please not talk about this?" Lily asked, still trying to breathe normally after the shock of the subject change. That was one memory Lily wished she could Obliviate.

"Oh, I understand. You're scared that I'll tell Jamsie. Don't worry. I won't. I promise."

"And you reek of sincerity," Lily said sarcastically. "But I'm not worried about James. He already knows. I just don't want to think about this."

Why had she even mentioned this to Sirius? Why? Was she a complete and utter idiot? No. He'd already known. James had told him. It didn't matter what she said.

"Come on. Open up. Tell Sirius your problems. After all, that's what best friends are for," Sirius said sweetly. Lily turned after stepping off the staircase to face him.

"Best friends? Sirius, this is probably the first time I've spoken to you outside of class. I think calling us friends at all would be a stretch," Lily said, turning and walking away.

"Okay. We're _secret_ best friends," Sirius declared. Lily laughed.

"So secret that even we didn't know."

"Exactly. Glad to know you're intelligent too." Sirius didn't seem at all bothered by Lily's attempts to make him leave her alone.

"Look, there's the Fat Lady."

"So now you have a choice," Sirius said. "Either talk to me about this now or wait until we're in the common room."

"No!" Lily exclaimed. She stopped walking. "We don't talk about this in the common room. Or ever. Ever would be better, but definitely not where other people could hear."

"So tell me now." He had that damnable twinkle in his eye. "Why'd you yell at Jamesie?"

"It's just because-- ugh. I can't believe I'm about to tell you this. I haven't told anyone but Sam this. Ever."

"What about Tracy?" Sirius asked.

"Tracy figured it out."

"You haven't talked to Tracy about any of this, have you?" he asked, his eyes twinkling. That's right. Sirius Black's eyes effing twinkled. "This is going to be great."

"I really wish you would stop saying that."

"Okay. So tell me."

"No."

"Please?" Sirius whined, walking forward and wrapping his arms around her in a hug. Lily stepped away quickly.

"Wow. That's an annoying tone of voice," Lily snapped. "Listen to me, Sirius Black. I don't talk about this with anyone, let alone with a stranger--"

"A secret best friend forever," Sirius corrected her, slinging his arm around her and leading her toward the portrait.

"Wait. Really. We aren't ever mentioning this in the common room."

"Of course not," Sirius said, agreeing adamantly. "I bet you yelled at him because you thought he was being a prat."

"Of course I yelled at him because he was being a prat. And for that matter, so were you. It was cruel and ugly to watch," Lily said. "I'm glad to see that sunk in with both of you."

Sirius grinned. He looked like the Cheshire cat. "Yet you chose James as your partner in Transfiguration today."

"It wasn't a lot of choice," Lily said. Then stopped. "Wait. How do you remember that?"

"James is my best friend. I know everything about him, including with whom he partners in class," Sirius replied, waving a hand.

"Really?" Lily asked as Sirius said the password to the portrait. "Then where is he at this moment?"

"That's easy: in our dorms sulking because he's already cursed everything all over the room and yelled himself hoarse, being calmed by Samantha and Tracy."

"Did they have a fight?" Lily asked. Sirius laughed. Hard. "What?"

"Nothing. This is just-- you have no idea. This made my night. My day. My month. Maybe my year. This is perfect. You having a crush on--"

Lily leapt forward and covered his mouth with her hands, leaning in very close and saying, "Not in the common room. Not ever. Understand? You promised you wouldn't talk about this."

She let her hands move so he could answer. "Oh. I won't tell him. Or mention him. We'll call him Sputnik."

"Sputnik?" Lily repeated. "Could you be any more random?"

"So why'd you yell at Sputnik?"

Figuring answering him would be the fastest escape and that he already knew the worst parts, Lily told him, "I liked him a lot and he made a fool out of me. He was a bully because he was bored, respected no one, and in general made me feel stupid for having my crush."

"You know, that's exactly what she said you'd say. Not about the crush part, but about the reason for yelling and hating -- or seeming to hate -- James."

"She who?" Lily asked.

Sirius smiled. "She the voice in my head that councils me on matters of interest."

"You're a fast liar," Lily praised.

"As are you, I'm learning. Tackling people." Sirius shook his head, his wide smile still plastered on his face.

"Why would I be a matter of interest to you?" Lily asked.

"Oh, you know, I have to look out for my friends."

"We're not friends."

"I wasn't referring to you. My friend that's interested in you. I used to think he was crazy. Laughed. But you. Oh, you'll do," Sirius said, nodding at her.

"Glad to know I pass your inspection."

"Always. You're my secret best friend."

"Secret best friend _forever_."

"So you acknowledge how close we are at last!" Sirius proclaimed. Lily shook her head and threw him an amused look.

"Why's your friend interested in me?" Lily asked, needing to receive some sort of closure after this conversation.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what's it about me that interests him? Does he need to get out of some detentions or something?" Lily asked, but Sirius didn't respond. He grinned, shook his head and turned toward his dorm, chuckling under his breath every now and again.


	18. Flashbacks

"Lilee!" Oh how Lily hated Sirius Black's voice when he wanted to be annoying.

"Sireee!" she called back across History of Magic classroom, mimicking the way he said her name.

"I saved a seat for you," Sirius said, waving her over to sit beside him (and incidentally also next to James, who was muttering under his breath at Sirius and didn’t even meet her gaze). Lily wanted to smack Sirius over the head. And then melt into the floor from shame and pretend like James could at least stand her.

"Do you remember that joy in my heart?" Lily asked Sirius.

"The one that overflows every time you see me or hear about Sputnik?" Sirius asked, a knowing smirk on his face as he raised an eyebrow and shot a quick glance at James. Lily wanted to hex Sirius. A lot.

"Oh, yes," Peter put in, looking up at Lily with large, innocent eyes. "I've heard about Lily's obsession with the Russian Muggle space program. You really have a thing for satellites, huh?"

Lily shot Sirius an accusing glare. He shrugged innocently before patting the seat beside him. Lily put her things down on the desk next to Christine and walked toward him. There were still a few minutes before class started.

"Sirius, can I talk to you outside really quickly?" Lily asked, smiling her deadliest smile and desperately trying not to notice the scowl that spread on James' face as she spoke to his friend. Like he didn't even want to be associated with Lily in the most distant of ways. _Well, tough,_ Lily thought. _You date one of my friends, I'm allowed to at least speak to your best friend._ Sirius smirked, stood and followed her out of the room.

"Is this the secret part of our bestest friendship?" Sirius asked in the corridor, seeing that no one was out there.

"Yes, the part where I flick you a lot," Lily said, flicking his shoulder. Sirius turned to stare at his shoulder with a look of abject horror on his face.

"What did I do to deserve that?"

"You told Peter," Lily accused, flicking him again.

"Smart bloke, that one. Figured it out on his own," Sirius said, shrugging. "Actually remarkable, that, as no one else seems to have caught on yet."

"Not for lack of you mentioning it all of the freaking time!" Flick. Flick. "The way you keep prattling on about Russian space programs might be a give away." Flick.

"If you'd prefer for me to use his name..."

"No!" Lily exclaimed, cutting him off as she lowered her hand. "But why'd Peter have to find out? I didn't want anyone else to know. It's so embarrassing."

"You have no idea," Sirius said, smiling.

"Does Remus know too?" Lily asked.

"I could tell him if you like," Sirius offered. Flick.

"Don't you dare," Lily said. "Recently, we've had great patrols. I don't want them to become awkward again."

"Great patrols, eh? Does Sputnik know?" Sirius asked with a wink. It sounded a lot like a sexual innuendo to Lily, but with Sirius everything sounded like an innuendo. Flick. Flick.

"You've been harassing me about this since February. Doesn't it ever get old?" Lily asked, her arms falling to her sides. Sirius just winked and walked back into the classroom. This whole situation was giving Lily an ulcer.

Sirius and she had gone on one walk together over a month and a half ago and now he felt it was his moral obligation to remind her of her crush on James at every possible opportunity. Especially in front of James. And if Lily weren't forcing herself to be in complete denial, she would suspect that James knew exactly what Sirius was doing. But it was almost impossible for her to pretend that James was oblivious what with the way he always looked so irritated when Sirius called Lily over to sit with him, to partner with him in class, to just walk over so that he could harass her.

It was obvious to Lily (though she was still working on the denial thing) that James knew what Sirius was doing and wanted absolutely nothing to do with her. Not even friendship.

Secretly, she was forcing herself to be okay with that because she had her eyes on a new bloke — a bloke she was unwilling to tell anyone about until she was sure she could like him without feeling overwhelming amounts of embarrassment. Well, okay, maybe she already liked him. He certainly wasn't the best-looking bloke in the world, but he listened, and he seemed to naturally understand what she was comfortable talking about and what she wasn't. He challenged her-- questioned her beliefs, her positions on policy, and even her magical concerns. He accepted nothing at face value and in return, Lily questioned him. Plus he could make her laugh like no one else.

Yes, Remus Lupin was certainly the total package.

Truth and Dare had been discarded by the third good patrol, replaced by Lily's explanation of sickle bets. They had only exchanged a sickle between them. Needless to say it had passed hands quite a few times.

 

**~*~*~**

 

_"So you remember our pranks?" Remus asked at the beginning of their patrol._

_"Random question much?" Lily asked. It was the Tuesday after their first good patrol, two days after the stressful walk with Sirius._

_"No. You told Will McGrath about them last patrol," Remus explained._

_"Oh. That's right. Well, of course I know about your pranks," Lily said, playing with her favorite Muggle toy as she walked: a yoyo. Up and down the thing went. "Everyone knows about them."_

_"Do you enjoy them?"_

_"I think most of them are hilarious."_

_"Well, you know, we are pretty hilarious people."_

_"And humble too," Lily laughed, nudging him with her left shoulder as she continued to play with the yo-yo._

_"You mean that wasn't just another un-thoughtful, conceited comment?" Remus asked. Lily almost stopped yo-yoing as she recognized the reference to the words she'd told James in Transfiguration two days before._

_"Nope," Lily replied, looking over at him, "because I know you don't mean it."_

_"How do you know that?"_

_"Because I've known you for two years and that is the first time I've ever heard you compliment yourself," Lily said. "Thus it was probably sarcastic."_

_"Well, that's not really a good way to judge. I've hardly spoken to you in those years." Remus smirked at her._

_"Do you want me to think you're conceited?" Lily questioned._

_"Nope. I was just checking to see where funny stopped and conceited started. Apparently you don't know either."_

_"I'll make you a deal. Any time I think you're being conceited or arrogant, I'll tell you so. Will that work?"_

_"It's a deal."_

_"Good. Side note: you are a liar."_

_"Liar? Me?" He gave her a horrified look. Lily laughed good-naturedly and looked at him, taking her eyes off her yo-yo long enough for it to hit a stone and fall limp on the string._

_Lily, winding the string back on the yo-yo, said, "You sound just like Sirius."_

_"Ewwww."_

_Lily laughed and let her yo-yo drop again._

  

_**~*~*~** _

 

_And during their third fun patrol (Lily was beginning to think of these patrols as 3 W.C.: With Conversation), they started playing Truth or Dare again for the last time._

_"Truth," Lily said, as the pair began climbing to the Divination Tower where they had been assigned to start that night._

_"How'd you do on the history test?" Remus asked._

_"Fine."_

_"That's not an answer."_

_"Yes it is. It's just not specific."_

_"Cheater." Remus smirked as Lily turned to glare at him._

_"Excuse me," Lily said, smiling, "but you're the one that manipulates the wording of the rules so often that it's hard for me to be sure that we're still playing the same game."_

_"And now you're just trying to distract me from forcing an answer out of you," Remus said. Damn. He had caught on. "How'd you do?"_

_"Fine," Lily said, turning to look back at the stairs. "I got an O."_

_"What?" Remus asked. "Then why didn't you want to tell me?"_

_Lily shrugged. "I don't like talking about marks. And this one was an anomaly probably caused by you reciting dates and implications at me last patrol. It’s not my best subject."_

_"But you don’t even talk about earning an O!" protested Remus. "I don't understand."_

_"I don't know. It sounds like bragging." Lily began playing with the charm on her necklace._

_"I asked."_

_"It still sounds like bragging, and I have no desire to sound like--" Lily cut herself off as they reached a landing._

_"Like James?" Remus asked. And Lily was annoyed to find that with each patrol Remus seemed more and more able to understand her pattern of thought and finish her sentences for her._

_"I wasn't thinking of him in particular," Lily lied lightly, hand dropping to her side._

_"Yes, you were." Remus sounded so sad that Lily looped her arm through his. It would have been difficult to decide who was more shocked by this random physical gesture: Lily, who was very unused to feeling so comfortable with a practical stranger, or Remus who stiffened, then relaxed and looked even more depressed._

_"I know he's your friend. I'm sorry," Lily apologized._

_"Why do you hate him?" Remus asked, turning to her. Lily laughed a self-mocking laugh and unhooked her arm from his._

_"Obviously you haven't spoken to him lately." She looked away as she tried not to remember that horrible look on James’s face when he had found out that she liked him._

_"What do you mean by that?" Remus asked. Well, if James wasn't about to tell his friend, Lily certainly wouldn't. It was bad enough that Sirius knew._

_"Just that everyone likes James."_

_"Except you," Remus muttered. Lily nudged him with her shoulder. When he looked over, she smiled at him._

_"I like you," Lily said, "and Sirius is convinced that he and I are secretly best friends. Isn't being friends with two out of the four good enough?"_

_"That's only fifty percent," Remus remarked, seeming to force himself to sound carefree. "If it were an exam, you'd fail."_

_"Good thing life isn't graded then."_

_"It isn't?" Remus asked, shocked. "I think someone ought to tell Professor McGonagall. She'll be terribly disappointed."_

_Lily laughed, turned to Remus and said, "I think we're going to be really good friends."_

 

_**~*~*~** _

 

_"But I'm sure I'm boring you," Lily said, finishing her explanation of the Maya culture for Remus on the fourth patrol W.C. He'd made a passing mention of Mayans, and Lily had started rattling off explanations of their numerical system. "I'll stop now."_

_"You don't have to stop. This is interesting," Remus protested. "Much more interesting than it sounded in class."_

_"Well, thanks, but I'm sure you don't care about ancient numerical systems that much," Lily said, waiting for him to open the door. They didn't bother to keep their voices down. That way, if anyone heard them, they would run off and they wouldn't have to catch them. Plus if the students heard and were still caught, then they definitely deserved to have the points taken off._

_"How do you know so much about the Maya?”_

_"I know a lot of random things," Lily said. "My mum, in order to foster sisterly bonding, signed Petunia and I up for Spanish lessons when I was eight. We kept going for a long while, actually. Eventually, when we had learned plenty of Spanish, we started studying Spanish countries and their histories. Want to know anything about the Incas or Aztecs?"_

_"Do you still study it?"_

_"Spanish? No," Lily said, shaking her head and glancing out the hall window at the full moon rising._

_"Why'd you stop studying?" Remus asked._

_"My sister," Lily began, a smile on her face though her heart hurt, "didn't want to study anymore. Said she had too much real work."_

_"Oh. I understand," Remus said. And the thing was, Lily believed him. Honestly believed that he understood what it was to lose something you adored because it wasn't convenient for someone else._

_"Anyway, I was always more of a dork than she was," Lily said, trying to return to light-hearted conversation._

_"Do you two get along?" Well, apparently Remus did not wish to return to light-hearted._

_"I'm set to be maid of honor at her wedding in August," Lily said, grimacing at the thought. How her mother had convinced Petunia (and Lily had no doubt that she'd been convinced) to ask Lily to be maid of honor, Lily had no idea. Petunia hadn't even written to tell Lily about the engagement. But still, Lily was sincere in her desire to rebuild her relationship with Petunia, even if the tone of her older sister's last letter made Lily want to rip her to shreds._

_"You don't look especially excited about that," Remus noted._

_"I am," Lily said. "It's just-- complicated." And it was, though Lily didn't want to have to explain it._

_"Always is," Remus said, reminding Lily of Mrs. Crouch talking about Christian. But more than that memory, Lily was filled with comfort. She really felt like Remus knew what it was to both love and be frustrated by someone so much that it hurt._

_"All right. We're done with that, let's talk about happiness: butterflies and chocolate," Lily said authoritatively, waving her hand at him. "In Spanish: Hablamos de las mariposas y los chocolates!"_

_Remus smile grew even larger, until it seem poised to overtake his cheeks and nose. Then he said, "Wouldn't right now be a great time for me to speak a foreign language?"_

_"Yes. Do you know any?"_

_"No. I barely know English," he said. "I can't believe you randomly studied Spanish. There are spells to translate for you."_

_"Where is the romance is casting a spell to translate for me? Where's the challenge, hmm?"_

_"You're--" he cut himself off._

_"A nerd?" Lily supplied. "Of course I am. Always have been. I'm learning to accept it. You ought to too."_

_"You're not a nerd, I never see you study."_

_"That's because we never hang out except in the dark of night. I study for hours," Lily said. "I study Astronomy on Wednesdays and Charms all week."_

_"No. You don't understand." He paused and seemed to try to think of a good way to put this. "James, for instance, is a good Transfiguration student--"_

_"More like a Transfiguration prodigy," Lily corrected. "I've seen his work. Even McGonagall is impressed."_

_Remus looked at her with that look -- the look that Lily was coming to associate with Remus: a mix of bewilderment and wonder, with just a hint in the furrowed brows that he was rapidly reassessing Lily and changing his opinion about her. Lily decided she liked that look._

_"Well, all right," Remus started again. "He's a Transfiguration prodigy, but he studies it all the time. Or he reads about it, at the least. He loves it-- working at it, learning new theories, reading articles in the Prophet about it. You're good at so much, but you don't seem to love anything."_

_Well, Lily thought, that's true enough._

_"I'm working on that," Lily said._

 

_**~*~*~** _

_"You saunter," Lily commented to Remus later on in that fifth patrol W.C._

_"I what?"_

_"You saunter instead of walk," Lily said, "but only on patrols."_

_"Really? And I suppose you just walk?" Remus asked, exaggerating his leg and arm motions as he spoke._

_"Me? No, no, no," Lily said, shaking her head, and using her right hand to indicate her legs. "I don't walk. I'm bringing back the lost art of meandering."_

_"Meandering?"_

_"Yes. I feel like meandering was lost and now I'm bring it back," Lily explained with a smirk as she focused on the end of the corridor they were walking through._

_"Like maraudering?" Remus asked. Lily's gaze flickered over to him._

_"I'm still unclear about your strange obsession with that word, but no, not like maraudering. I'm neither looting nor pilfering anything."_

_"Ah. Good to know the distinction," he said seriously._

_"Just thought you ought to know," Lily sang._

_"Can I call you Meanderer?"_

_"Can I call you Saunterer?" Lily returned._

_"I'm going to have to say no," he replied, eyes twinkling._

_"Then I will have to say no as well," Lily said sadly, shaking her head. "It's too bad, though. We really could have used a pair of good pet names."_

_"Pet names?" Remus shook his head in horror and corrected her slowly, "Secret names. Code names. Anything but pet names. I'm a bloke for goodness sake."_

_"Oh, right. I'd forgotten, Sweetums." Lily smirked._

_"Sweetums?" Remus repeated, looking skeptical._

_"Oh, sorry, Poppet, do you not like your code name?" Now she grinned._

_"Sometimes you confuse me a great deal," Remus said._

_"And sometimes you want to give me a present-- a large white one with a big red bow."_

_"Oh all the time," Remus said sarcastically, but Lily saw that he too was smiling._

 

_**~*~*~** _

 

_And then there was the moment the night before when Remus and she had seen Mrs. Norris coming around a corner. Remus had leaned down and whispered in Lily's ear, "Sickle if you tackle Filch to the ground."_

_And the feel of his breath against her ear did marvelous things to the rest of her body. Oh her hormones were getting out of control._

_Lily looked down the hall, back into Remus's challenging gaze, grabbed his arm and pulled him behind a suit of armor, quickly Disillusioning them both. And standing there, in order to fit, Lily had been basically molesting Remus. At least, she felt that way. He hadn't seemed to notice, but this was definitely as close as she had ever been with Christian and they'd dated for three months. Actually, that thought just made her feel pathetic._

_But there had been no time to dwell on that as she watched Mrs. Norris pass by, eying the niches carefully. She panicked for a moment, wondering if she'd performed the Disillusionment Charm correctly. But when the cat kept walking she breathed a sigh of relief and Cushion Spelled the floor (it wouldn't do to hurt him, after all). And when Filch walked by, she took a deep breath and yelled, "Student out of bounds!"_

 

**~*~*~**

 

Oh yes, Lily remembered. That had been a great patrol. Not only had she gotten the sickle back, but the look of horror, admiration, and humor on Remus' face as he saw Filch scramble up off the ground made her smile even days later.

"What are you smiling about?" Sam asked, walking up to Lily in the corridor and pulling her out of her reminiscent state of mind.

"Nothing," Lily said, "just something that happened on patrol."

"Remus still talking?" Sam asked, walking into the History classroom.

"Yep."

"That's good." Sam put her things down next to Christine, shoving Lily's things aside.

"Sam?" Lily said, pointing to her books. "I was sitting there."

"You were?" Sam asked. If Lily hadn't known her friend so well, if she hadn't noticed the way Sam's brown eyes narrowed in playful challenge, Lily might actually have thought her friend was sincere in her confusion.

"Christine," Lily said, leaning around Sam to get Christine's attention, "tell Sam I was sitting here."

Christine glanced at Sam and then back at Lily and shook her head, telling Lily, "She's looking at me in a really scary way."

"I'm looking at you in a really frustrated way," Lily informed her friend.

"Yes, but Sam's _scary."_

Lily intensely disliked her two friends at that moment: Christine for obviously not feeling frightened of her and Sam for so obnoxiously smirking.

"There seems to be a place next to Sirius in the back," Sam said, sitting down as she pointed to the back of the room. Lily glanced back and saw Sirius ostentatiously patting the seat next to him. James, though Lily promised herself she didn't care, was still glaring at his book. Lily turned back to Sam.

"Hello, best friend?" Lily whispered. "Where is your supportive side? I can't just sit by him."

"I am being supportive," Sam said. "You're just too thick to realize it. I think it's time you started mending things with James."

"Mending what things? He hates me. That doesn't need mending, it needs serious surgery."

"Oh you and your silly Muggle phrases," Sam said, as if that had been the point of Lily's comment.

"I'm not the one that won't speak to him," Lily lied. She knew very well that they were both being equally uncomfortable around the other.

"Liar!" Christine said. Always on top of things, that one.

"Yes, Lily. You are lying. Go away now," Sam said loftily as she arranged her things on the desk. Lily briefly considered banishing all of Sam's stuff onto Sirius's desk but thought that would draw even more attention to an already awkward situation.

"Today we will be studying..." Oh great. And now Professor Binns was there and lecturing. He didn't even seem to notice Lily standing in front of him.

"I strongly dislike you at this moment," Lily whispered to Sam and she picked up all of her books and bag -- the mess that it was -- and moved to the back of the room.

"What was that, Secret Best Friend?" Sirius asked. Lily glared again.

"Nothing. I was just saying good afternoon," Lily replied, putting her things on the desk and then sitting sulkily there all class as Sirius looked entirely too proud of himself and James looked depressed. Yes, Lily was definitely feeling irked with Sam at that moment. She scrunched up a piece of parchment (a harder task than one might imagine) and launched it at Sam's head from the back.

Unfortunately, Lily's aim wasn't too fantastic and it bounced off her friend's head and straight through Professor Binns.

"Nice shot," Sirius said none too quietly. "What was it and why did he deserve it?"

"A ball of parchment," Lily answered. "I didn't meant to hit Binns. I just felt like Sam really needed something thrown at the back of her head."

The stifled laughter to her left and right made her feel a tad bit better.

"Ten points from Gryffindor."

Lily (and, though she didn't realize it, the entire back section of the class) turned to stare at Jodie, the Ravenclaw prefect who had deducted the points. She was glaring at Lily.

"Jodie," Lily said, "Sam really deserved it."

"You can't disrupt a class to settle petty squabbles."

Oh, if there weren't three desks between them, Lily would have smacked the girl.

"Disturbed the class? This conversation isn't even disturbing the class. He just keeps talking." Seeing Jodie was unmoved by her speech, Lily looked at Kevin Creggie beside Jodie who shrugged his shoulders apologetically. Argh. Lily really wished History of Magic weren't a class everyone had to take, and thus a class they still had to share.

But Lily did not want to fight about it. Instead, Lily turned back to her parchment and began scratching out notes as the other students fell asleep. Lily always thought that was rather dumb. Sleeping only meant you had to read the book, something Lily adamantly avoided doing. Thus, she took notes and listened in class. It was practically the only studying she did for the class and she would not let some petty prefect take that from her. 

 

**~*~*~**

 

But prefects seemed destined to ruin her week.

The prefect meeting had only just begun and it already felt like it had been dragging on for hours (days, years, decades, and eons too). Diana was drawling on about something or other and Lily and Matt were playing a game of tick-tac-toe. Actually, they were playing about ten games of tic-tac-toe. Neither had yet won a game and both agreed that tying was worse than losing. Remus had gone home again, though he'd promised Lily he would be back by the following night in time for their patrol.

"So does anyone have any suggestions?" Diana asked, opening the floor for all the prefects to speak. Matt and Lily turned to the group.

All around the table people were shifting in their seats. Diana had probably just asked for "fun ideas" that the prefects could implement that the student would enjoy. The purpose of such ideas was still lost on Lily, but she wasn't about to tell Diana she was an idiot for wanting to do something to make students happy.

"I was thinking about an all-school secret gift exchange," Jenna the Hufflepuff sixth year said, standing.

"The scale and our subsequent inability to control such a secret exchange would create havoc," Gertrude said before Diana could finish nodding her head in enthusiasm. It felt like the whole room took a breath. Lily, for her part, was shocked that Gertrude was speaking in meetings. First she volunteered in class and now this? What was going on?

Jenna was not to be deterred, however. She suggested several ways to make the exchange possible-- each of which Gertrude found fault it. This was definitely the most Lily had ever heard her speak.

"We could have a bake sale!" Jodie suggested, taking advantage of Jenna's disheartened look.

"Which would involve what?" Barbantio, the other Slytherin sixth year, asked. Lily was thoroughly and completely shocked to hear him speak. Honestly, what was going on? She looked confusedly at Gertrude, who met her look with a challenge in her eyes.

Oh. Frick. Gertrude was volunteering information because she wanted Lily to do the same. Frick. And because Gertrude had done what Lily had never done -- spoken up in these meetings -- Lily knew she had to do the same. Frick.

Jodie was rambling. "We would have different booths and things with cupcakes and breads and sweets that the students would purchase."

"Purchase for what purpose?" Barbantio asked.

"Well, we could use fake money," Jenna said. "And give the money away instead of points in class."

"So that the students could pay for food items they could pick up at any meal?" a fifth year Ravenclaw asked.

"Or in the kitchen at anytime," the seventh year Gryffindor girl said.

"If we give them money instead of points," a seventh year Hufflepuff pointed out, "then the house cup at the end of the year could be debated."

"And would we take the 'money' away or the points?" Kevin Creggie asked.

"This meeting is meant to be brainstorming. Let's try constructive criticism," Matt inserted.

A few 'constructive criticisms' later, both Jodie's and Jenna's ideas were gone, as was the seventh year Hufflepuff's idea of bring in a professional Quidditch team because they did not have the funds for it. The feeling that settled on the room was unnerving. As the group prattled on, Lily let her mind return to the dinner with Gertrude so long ago, the night after her walk with Sirius...

_"You ought to speak in class," Gertrude told Lily after the two had exchanged 'pleasantries' outside the door of the Great Hall, where they met before walking toward the kitchen._

_"What do you mean?" Lily asked, wishing that Gertrude could occasionally just be a normal friend that didn't notice the little things that other people tended to miss._

_"In class, you never volunteer."_

_"I volunteer."_

_"No, you don't, not unless you're called on. In Transfiguration, for example, when McGonagall asked for someone to demonstrate the spell motion of the protective transfiguration, you didn't raise your hand." Gertrude looked over at Lily._

_"Well, okay. You caught me," Lily mumbled, wishing this long day would end. She'd never felt that way around Gertrude before, but after that horrendous History of Magic episode with Jodie lighting her parchment on fire by accident and then Sirius insisting she sit by him in Arithmancy - sit next to James and just feel worthless and like an intruder - even though they'd never sat by one another before she just wanted to sleep._

_"Why didn't you volunteer?" Gertrude asked again as they stopped in front of the picture of the fruit._

_"I don't need the attention," Lily answered, though she was certain Gertrude knew her answer before she'd said it. Lily tickled the pear._

_"It's more than that," Gertrude said, walking down the stairs. "You don't like showing people that you're genuinely good at things."_

_"I'm not good at Transfiguration."_

_"Simply because it isn't your best subject does not mean that you're not proficient at it."_

_"And how would you know my best subjects_ _?" Lily asked, more to distract Gertrude from the line of conversation than to receive an answer._

_Gertrude did not turn around as she said, "My parents keep me informed."_

_"About me?"_

_"About all the best students." Gertrude paused and let Lily pass her._

_"And I'm one of the best students at Hogwarts?" Lily scoffed, sitting at the table as the house-elves started covering the table in the best Italian cuisine._

_"Yes, Lily, you are," Gertrude replied, deadpan. Lily laughed and waved her off. She wasn't in the mood to be falsely flattered._

_"No I'm not," Lily scoffed. "I'm not very powerful at all"_

_"What you lack in power, you make up for in art."_

_"What's that supposed to mean?" Lily asked, pouting. "Why are we talking about this? Can't we just chat about the weather or the news? Hell, I'd settle for chatting about Voldemort. Just something straightforward."_

_"That protective transfiguration spell--"_

_"You know, we could say it's cold, the Ministry is having elections, and he's evil," Lily suggested._

_"--involved converting both curse and charm magic into Transfiguration magic," Gertrude continued, pretending like Lily hadn't offered perfectly good alternative conversation topics. "It's difficult magic."_

_"Well, I did study a lot to do it," Lily said._

_"Being good at something takes work. Quit degrading yourself, Lily, and accept that you are a gifted witch," Gertrude said, picking up her fork and eating her penne rossa._

_"I thought we agreed that I wasn't powerful," Lily said, cutting her fettuccini alfredo._

_"You don't have to be power to be a formidable opponent."_

_"Oh eff it," Lily mumbled, realizing that her curiosity was peaked. "Could you clarify please?"_

_"For instance, Barbantio, my prefect partner, and James Potter are probably the two most powerful wizards in our year, but neither of them could have undone your spell."_

_"That's ridiculous"_

_"McGonagall kept the stone you conjured and transfigured, and Barbantio and I tested it."_

_"Wow. You have too much time on your hands," Lily said, a little unsettled by that information. "But that doesn't mean anything. It wasn't a powerful spell at all. Dumbledore, McGonagall, or Flitwick could have sneezed and broken it."_

_"Yes, because they are very powerful and skilled, but you w_ _eave magic naturally."_

_"Wow. Sparse with the language tonight, aren't you?" Lily asked, still annoyed as she twirled her noodles. "But what does weaving do that power doesn't? Nothing, because power is more important."_

_"No," Gertrude said, putting down her fork briefly and locking eyes with Lily. "While it would be ideal to be a combination of powerful and a weaver, both can be formidable weapons."_

_"Right."_

_"A powerful wizard might ward a house repeatedly, build a magic wall around it, and reinforce those wards," Gertrude said. "A powerful but unskilled magician could only pass by destroying all of them, expending quite a bit of their magic. Only then -- and only if the opponent still had magical reserves for this sort of long battle -- would he be able to harm that wizard."_

_"And?" Lily asked, twirling the noodles and lifting a forkful to her mouth._

_"A weaver could sneak past those wards. Could disrupt the basic framework of the protective wards. It's like comparing a strong beater to a seeker. The first could do damage, if they tried hard enough, but the seeker wins the game."_

_"Wow. A Quidditch metaphor. I feel vaguely dirty." Lily took a sip of her water._

_"You are a natural seeker, Lily," Gertrude continued. "You have the ability to fly circles around your enemies, even if you can't produce a shield to withstand the power of their attacks. You don't have to. You can create other ways."_

_"That's not very practically helpful"_

_"Of course it is. Think about the classes that come most naturally to you. The spells that you lean on. Charms, shields, potions. Weaving. Not at all like the things you suffer on where you think it's about power_ _," Gertrude said, picking up her fork and beginning to eat again. "But before you think that far ahead, you need to quit holding back."_

_Lily's rolled her eyes. "Aren't you just full of surprising orders and observations tonight."_

_"I'm not joking, Lily. Your house needs a leader."_

_"They have one," Lily said, thinking of James Potter. Even if Lily didn't (and she would swear that she didn't) still like him, she could see the way he collected loyal followers. She didn't understand it, why they would want such an egotistical leader, but she did see the way he could command a group. He made people love him. Lily sort of hated that about him._

_"They have an incomplete leader," Gertrude said._

_"You say cryptic things like that and expect me to accept it. I do not. I reject your crypticness."_

_"You can't keep holding back in class, hiding yourself away because it's easy. Your house and this school need a leader, and you have to be it."_

_Lily was starting to feel redundant. "Even if that were true, why me? Why not you?"_

_"I'm not a Gryffindor."_

_"What does that matter? If the school needs someone to lead them, let it be you."_

_"Lily, this is another instance when your tendency to believe all people to be like you hinders you."_

_"Again: cryptic. And vague."_

_"Not all people easily forget a person's house."_

_"That's just stupid. You can't judge a person by their house. That's like judging someone by their family," Lily said, stabbing one of the pieces of broccoli on the side of her plate. "If you did that, you'd have to think I was as Muggle as they come, and mean and horse-faced and selfish and-- oops. I'm trying to be supportive. I like my sister. I do."_

_They sat in silence for a moment, stabbing broccoli and chicken, eating their different noodles._

_"I wish the whole world were like you, Lily. I wish everyone were like you," Gertrude said so quietly that Lily wasn't sure she'd heard it. When their eyes met, Lily was surprised to see something like vulnerability there. But it was gone so quickly that Lily was sure she had been mistaken._

_"I don't wish anyone were like me," Lily said. "Then everyone would be neurotic and jumping to all sorts of strange conclusions that have no base in reality. They'd be too loud and too mean and too stubborn. No one would ever shut up, and everyone would sunburn because of the light skin. And anyway, you hate me."_

_"I don't hate you, Lily. I hate the idea of you. But as a person, I respect you a great deal." Lily felt a flush of pride to hear that someone she respected respected her. Then she processed the rest of her statement._

_"Why do you hate the idea of me?" Lily asked._

_"If Muggle-borns hadn't been admitted into Hogwarts, none of this would be happening right now," Gertrude said, looking down._

_"None of what? The attacks?" Lily asked. "Of course they'd still be happening. Voldemort just wanted an excuse. He found it in Muggle-borns."_

_"But the purity of blood is the way he recruits. And it's effective because others believe it too."_

_"Others like your family?_

_"Yes. Like them and like others."_

_"Like Sirius's family?" Lily pressed, asking more than she had intended to. But it intrigued her, what Gertrude and Sirius had spoken about all those long nights ago._

_"Yes."_

_"He ran away from them."_

_"Yes, he did," Gertrude said. "But Sirius was always a strange character, like a house elf that wants freedom."_

_And Lily didn't say anything to that, though privately she wondered if Gertrude also wanted freedom. If Gertrude was going to dedicate herself to Lily's "side" (an idea Lily tried not to think about; it was weird), did that mean that she too would be giving up her family? Lily couldn't imagine Gertrude giving up her family for anyone._

_Lily didn't know much about Gertrude Wrightman, but she certainly knew what she valued. For Gertrude to turn her back on her family-- it would mean she was risking shaming (and maybe hating) herself._

_If this blonde haired, blue-eyed Slytherin was willing to risk so much, maybe Lily ought to think about simply raising her hand in class a few times..._

Lily looked around at the prefect meeting. They had been discussing various ideas that Lily hadn't even listened to, and all around the room they looked angry and irritated and tired. They looked nothing like the group of students Lily had chatted with on the train home at the end of her fifth year. What had changed so completely in those short nine months?

"My sister's school does this thing that seems pretty interesting," Lily began, looking casually around the table at the fifth, sixth, and seventh year pairs and McGonagall silent in the corner. She didn't really want to talk, but if it stopped people from freaking out, why not speak? "It's sort of like the bake sale and the secret gift exchange combined."

"Why would we do that, when both those ideas didn't work?" Jenna asked snidely. Lily looked at her in surprise. Hadn't they been friends before the pressure of prefects?

Lily said, "Well, it's not the exact same thing. They have pre-made pieces of parchment that the students write on--"

"What a novel idea," Jodie muttered.

"They write messages of gratitude to their friends," Lily continued. "If we did the same thing, we could have drop boxes placed throughout the corridors. The parchment will have a space for them to be addressed, but the message itself will not reveal itself until the addressee touches it."

"How do you keep the messages--"

"From being cruel?" Lily finished the seventh year Gryffindor's question. He nodded. "We charm the paper to reject any ill intent. Hex it maybe and let everyone know that it's hexed so that if people write cruel things, their hand turns blue and they can't write anymore. And the boxes reject those notes."

"There are ways around hexes like that," Kevin said.

"Not if Dumbledore casts the spell," Lily said, folding her feet under her so that she was sitting Indian-style on the chair, getting progressively more excited about this idea. "Diana said were could use any resources we wanted, and I think asking the headmaster for a minute of his time to charm a bunch of parchment wouldn't be a ridiculous request."

"I can't believe you actually heard what Diana was saying," Kevin remarked across the table. Lily smiled.

"I'm hurt, Kevin," Lily said, holding her hand over her heart. "I always listen."

Everyone smiled at that, knowing she was lying.

"Even when you look like you're building a miniature model of Hogwarts?" joked that seventh year Hufflepuff girl Lily knew so well. People laughed a little.

"I still want to know who ate that last castle!" Lily exclaimed, and this time people laughed a bit more openly and the mood of angry resentment was broken. Instead of being a group of students vying for the prominent position in this project, they all worked together to make Lily's idea work.

How, Lily wondered, had she known how to do that? To break the tension, she meant. She'd always taken it for granted that she could control a room. It wasn't something she necessarily thought she was good at, but when she was placed in front of a large group, she knew how to get the reactions she wanted. Away from those large groups, disinterested in being the centre of attention, Lily had no idea how she managed it.

"Instead of having charms, we could tell the students that we will read through all of the notes to ensure that they aren't mean," the fifth year Hufflepuff girl suggested.

"Yes," Lily agreed, nodding. "That could work. We could have a night to sort them - maybe one of the prefect meetings could be dedicated to it."

"Always trying to get out of meetings, eh, Lily?" Matt asked. The group laughed again.

"Why do we have to sort them? Why not just have the notes deliver themselves after they're placed in the boxes?"

"Oh!" Lily exclaimed, really excited. "We could put activation delivery charms on all of the notes that pass into the boxes. That way, the notes could all deliver themselves in a single day."

"Which we would have to name something corny like Friendship Appreciation Day."

"Perfect!" Lily said. The prefects laughed again.

"Of course," Matt sighed, though he too was smiling.

"We'd have to make sure everyone received a note," Lily cautioned.

"How could we do that without sorting?"

"More spells?"

"The prefects could be accountable for a different group of students," Diana suggested. "All of you, and Matt and I, would be required to write a positive note to everyone in that particular group and send it anonymously."

"And if the designated group was a year and house other than your own, we'd all learn more about people we probably didn't know," that fifth year Hufflepuff added. Lily beamed.

"Wonderful," Lily said, "but I think that we should forego the charms and have the sorting, to ensure that none of the notes were tampered with. And I think that the prefects should hand deliver the notes so that no one charms a parchment to look like a note and carry an angry message. If we hand them to everyone, they'll know they're legit."

"And you'll be able to miss even more class," quipped someone to Lily's left.

"I never said I didn't have alternative motives," Lily replied lightly. The others laughed. "We could schedule the passing out times around people's schedules, if they want to avoid missing class or if they want to avoid the horror that is Transfiguration we could work something out. Only joking, Professor McGonagall."

And so the idea progressed. Not much later a vote was held and, nominated by Gertrude Wrightman, Lily was elected Head of the Friendship Appreciation Day Committee (a truly ridiculous title).

 

**~*~*~**

 

Lily was still thinking about the different details involved in the F.A.D. project when she arrived at patrol the next night, which accounted for her silence at the beginning and her shock when Remus began speaking.

"So what's this I hear about you being interested in the Muggle space program?" Remus asked, opening the conversation. Lily felt panic at the reminder and then relief as she realized that he didn't know. At least Sirius hadn't told everyone.

"Nothing. Sirius is going batty."

"Going?"

"Yeah, whatever. He is batty. He found out about this bloke I used to like," Lily explained. "And now he won't shut up about it."

"Bloke you like?" Remus asked. Lily looked over at him and saw his eyes shining with interest. Again, she chose to ignore this. Remus didn't like her. Right?

"Used to like," Lily said, and then, admitting more than she had with Sirius, added, "Actually, it kind of hurts to talk about."

"What happened?"

When Lily looked over at Remus, though she hadn't wanted to talk about this with anyone -- not Sam, not Sirius, not even her mother -- she found herself wanting to tell Remus everything about him situation. 

"He broke my heart, actually," Lily said, trying and failing to maintain a light tone. Remus looked back at the corridor. The two of them had never discussed anything like this before. At least not overtly, and Lily tried not to wonder what it meant that she trusted him. "He started dating one of my best friends. Then he quit speaking to me after he found out I liked him."

Lily figured Remus would be able to put it together, who her crush had been, but when he looked at her it was obvious he hadn't. He looked mad-- mad in a way no one had any business being mad at their best friend.

"What an idiot," Remus said, sounding like he was cursing. Lily smiled at him and once again found herself initiating physical contact by giving him a one armed hug.

"Thanks," Lily said as she retracted her arm, kind of embarrassed about the amount of affection she had just shown. "So anyway, what happened to you?"

"What?" he asked, jumping.

"What's happening in your love life?" Lily asked again, trying to less like she knew his heart had been broken recently.

"That's not what you asked," Remus said, catching her lie like he always did. Lily was beginning to think he was a diviner. "You asked what happened to me, like you knew."

"Well, I don't know," Lily said, looking away from him-- at the walls, at the paintings, at the ceiling. "I just assumed."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"You're uncomfortable," he said, sounding terribly curious about her mannerisms.

"I didn't mean to be rude. You just seemed--" She took a breath. "You looked like you understood a little too much, you know?"

Remus only shook his head as Lily walked up to a door and opened it, which she convinced herself had more to do with fulfilling her role as a prefect rather than just pure desperation to get away from Remus at that moment. Unfortunately, she still had to face him when she returned and boy was he looking at her in a strange way.

"What?" Lily asked, uncomfortable under his penetrating gaze.

"Nothing," Remus said, looking over her with a mixture of confusion, pride, and something Lily couldn't identify. "You're just incredibly..."

"Perfect? Amazing? Beautiful?" Lily prompted, laughing.

"Thoughtful," Remus finished.

"Thoughtful?" Lily screwed her nose up in distaste. "Didn't you hear any of my suggestions just now?"

"Yes," Remus said, shaking his head shortly and smiling at her, "but you would have laughed if I'd said any of those things and thought I was joking."

"As you would have been," Lily said, not understanding. "No one really thinks they're that great. Well. Okay. Some of your friends do. But aside from them."

Remus looked like he wanted to say something, but changed his mind and muttered, “I guess that’s fair.”

"Hey," Lily said in a softer voice. "I didn't mean you. I don't judge you by them."

"I know." But still he didn't sound like he understood. He sounded frustrated.

"So anyway, what happened with this girl you liked?" Lily asked, deciding a complete change of subject was needed. Remus coughed into his hand, looked at her with wide eyes, and then straight-ahead.

"Didn't work out."

"Why not?"

"She's out of my league." He didn't sound self-pitying; He just sounded like he honestly accepted the fact that this girl was out of his league. It was just a fact of life, he seemed to imply.

"Oh please!" Lily exclaimed, making a dismissive gesture with her hands. "If she said that--"

"She didn't say it, but it's true," Remus said in that same simple, honest tone. "I thought for a while that she felt I was beneath her, and I set out to prove her wrong, but I'm coming to realize that she would never say anything like that."

"Well, that's a bit better. I've found that people who think they're incredible are normally trying to make up for something," Lily said.

"Actually," Remus said with a hint of irony, "she thought I was conceited."

"You?" Lily asked, shocked. "Obviously she's never spoken to you."

"Oh. She has. And she's right."

Lily's glared at him in response of his ridiculous comment. "She definitely is not!"

"In any case, when she found out how I felt about her, she quit speaking to me. Avoids me like the plague." Remus tried to look casual. Lily's mouth dropped open in horror.

"What a bitch," Lily said. Remus looked shocked.

"You never curse."

"Only when people deserve it," Lily said. "And a girl that avoids perfectly nice blokes just because she thinks she's too good for them deserves a good curse or two."

"I don't think she thinks she better than me, not really," Remus said, considering, "but she does think I'm a prat."

"And you just gave up?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I'm not encouraging chasing a girl that's so vain, but if you really like her, did you try to make her realize she was wrong about you? Maybe she's playing hard to get or something."

Remus laughed and shook his head, saying, "I don't think she's playing hard to get, but yes I'm a stubborn bastard and so I am still trying to convince her. Actually, I'm trying as we speak."

"Sent her an owl or something?" Lily asked, smiling.

"I sent her a friend."

"Not Sirius, right?" Lily asked, horrified.

Remus laughed. "I didn't send him, no, but I think they found each other anyway."

"You should watch out for that one," Lily cautioned, only half-joking about Sirius. "He has an annoying tendency to harass girls."

"And those girls have a tendency to start liking him," Remus said, but to Lily it sounded like a question. She pulled a face.

"Really?" Lily asked. "Does he date a lot?"

"You don't know?" 

"Well, I've only really begun speaking to him this year, a couple of months ago, actually. I was surprised he even knew my name, to tell you the truth."

"Of course he knows your name. You've been in the same classes for six years," Remus said, laughter in his voice.

"Yes, but I mean, the only reason I knew his name was basically because McGonagall's always yelling it," Lily said. "She doesn't really have a need to call out my name in class."

"Sure." Remus laughed. "You're just the perfect, attentive student."

Lily smiled and said condescendingly, "No, no. I'm a wallflower."

"A wallflower?" Remus asked. "What's that?"

"A Muggle expression, I guess," Lily said. "The magical equivalent might be the Leaky Cauldron: eyes drift right over me."

Remus laughed again.

"What?" Lily asked, poking him in the side. He jumped away a little.

"Nothing," he said, shaking his head as the smile lingered on his face and he held the place where she'd poked him. "I've just never imagined that you could think you were a 'wallflower'; everyone notices you."

"Oh, psh!" Lily said. "Everyone notices people like Sirius Black and James Potter. Not me."

Remus shook his head and took a sip of his juice from his satchel before addressing her, saying, "I've never met anyone like you, Lily."

"Yeah, well," Lily said with a toss of her hair over her shoulder, "I am pretty unique."

"But you don't even believe that! You think you're a bloody wallflower!" Remus exclaimed, his smile growing as if to express his sheer disbelief. It was like he'd only just realized the number of pieces that his favorite puzzle had.

"Would you like me to draw up a list of adjectives that I actually believe could apply to myself?" Lily offered.

"That would be lovely."

"Lovely?" Lily repeated, shaking her head. "We're going to work on you so that this girl of yours thinks of you and thinks, 'Wow. Perfection embodied.' And then you can ignore her and make her regret ever turning away from you."

Remus just shook his head and looked vaguely frustrated and angry.

"We'll start with eliminating the word lovely from your vocabulary," Lily began, and Remus laughed.

"What about you and your bloke?" Remus asked.

"What about him?"

"Are you working on snatching him?" Remus looked sickened at the thought, and he didn't even know who the guy was. Wouldn't he be surprised to find it was James Potter, his best friend?

"Oh, he's a lost cause. Dating my friend now. And even if he weren’t, he made it more than clear I’m not someone he likes. Even as a friend, I guess," Lily said.

It took her a moment to realize that Remus had stopped walking. She turned to look at him questioningly. He was looking at her with such intensity that Lily wanted to look anywhere rather than at him. And tears seemed to be nipping annoyingly at the corner of her eyes. What the hell?

"You deserve better than that," Remus said. "You know you--"

"Well, the girlfriend thing makes it a moot point," Lily cut him off, not wanting to hear him voice her insecurities. She didn't even like thinking about them, she'd only mentioned them because she thought he would take it as a joke. She thought the girlfriend comment, at least, would lighten the mood. Instead, it just made him lean toward her as she widened her eyes to keep the tears in them as opposed to her on her cheeks.

"Are you-- um-- you know?" he asked.

"I'm fine," Lily said stubbornly, understanding his unfinished and mumbled question. Honestly. Why was she being so stupid about this? James had lots of reasons not to like her-- she yelled at him, she was too loud for him, she annoyed people if they were with her for too long, she was weird, she had been bloody attacked by the Dark Lord-- okay, maybe that last one had nothing to do with it, but Lily liked having an excuse. But even with that excuse, she couldn't help but wonder if James' not liking her had more to do with the fact that she was by no standard pretty or sexy or anything like that. At the very least, she could have been cute. Instead, she had large eyes, a large nose, and a large mouth all squashed onto a little face.

"You look--"

"Like I'm going to cry," Lily finished. At least when she said it, she controlled it. "I know. I'm being silly. Sorry. I'll stop now."

"That's not--"

"Help!" cried a voice down the corridor. Both Remus and Lily instantly turned, wands drawn, to face the scared Gryffindor running down the hall.

"Christopher?" Lily called out. Remus turned to her in surprise, but she didn't notice as she was already running to meet the fifth year. "What happened?"

"It's Tom," the boy said, turning and running away from the prefects, leading them through various passages as he explained that his friend and he were out after hours, sneaking to Hogsmeade. They'd been drinking and when the staircase moved, Tom had fallen backward, sticking his hand in the sticking stair and falling off the bottom edge. Now he was stuck, midair.

While they knew what happened before they reached the area, Lily and Remus were still shocked by the sight of the boy, hanging. Luckily the stairs hadn't squashed him to death or anything. As she looked down at him, her hand automatically covered the place in her chest where it ached. Remus looked at her, but she was focused on the younger student.

"Tom?" Lily called out, standing at the end of the corridor, looking down at the boy hanging by his hand. Oh geez. She'd never realized how far it was from the top to the bottom of the hall. Was that what she floated over every time the stairs detached?

"Lily?" Tom asked, looking up at her with obvious pain on his face.

"Hey there, Tom," she said, trying to keep her voice steady. "Remus and I are going to get you out, okay?"

"But I don't want to!" Tom said. "Take a picture!"

"Is he still drunk?" Remus asked Christopher.

"A little," the fifth year admitted.

"The first thing we're going to do is sober you up, Tom," Remus said, stepping forward. Lily reached out and grabbed his wrist, trying to keep him from stepping too close to the edge. He looked questioningly at her.

"Fear of heights sort of thing," Lily explained quickly. Remus nodded and cast the spell from where he stood. And then Tom started yelling.

"Shhh! Tom. You're going to be okay," Lily said.

"Lily," Remus said, turning to her, "I know how to detach his hand, but I need you to levitate him up so that he doesn't fall, all right?"

"Okay. I can do that," Lily said quickly, turning back to Tom. She was glad Remus was there. She had been thinking about places to find rope to wrap around the boy.

" _Wingardium Leviosa_ ," Lily cast. Tom floated up a bit and his whimpering lessened as the full weight of his body was no longer relying solely on his left wrist for support.

Remus crept forward and started prodding the step with his wand. Lily looked away, needing to focus on Tom and maintain his height. She'd never levitated something for this long before. Not something this heavy anyway. Well, all right, his weight didn't matter, but Lily's focus kept wavering to his real dependency on her. If she let go of this spell, he would fall a very, very long way. The thought of how much control she wielded over him made her feel physically ill.

"Done," Remus said, standing back up. Lily floated Tom further up until the stairs shifted into place with an almost audible sigh. Then she placed him back down, where he collapsed and started thanking them both profusely. Thanks came from Christopher too.

"You're welcome," Lily said, "and you're very stupid."

Both boys shut up.

"I mean, honestly. You could have died, Tom." Their faces paled. "I don't mean to scare you, but I do. Do you think that you could have survived a fall like that?"

"Lily," Remus began quietly, looking at her with frighteningly large eyes and Lily was shocked to find that she was crying. _Oh. He must think I'm such a basket case. First the thing about how I look-- oh gosh did I really talk about that? - and now this._

"Go back to Gryffindor right now," Lily commanded the two boys.

"So are you not taking any points off?" Christopher asked. Tom looked over at his friend with horror on his face, as though he was thinking what Lily was, _Did he really just have the gall to ask that?_

"Of course I'm taking points off," Lily said. "Second offense for both of you, so twenty points each right there, and another ten off for sheer stupidity in asking that question."

"That's fifty!" Christopher complained.

"The only reason you aren't losing a fifty _each_ is because you had enough intelligence to at least find a prefect and ask for help," Lily finished.

"And we deserve it," Tom said. He, at least, had the decency to look horrified by what had just happened.

Tom, who was sober and looked honestly frightened, grabbed Christopher by his robes and started pulling him toward Gryffindor tower. Then he pushed him along and turned to address the prefects again.

"Thanks," he said, looking at them with sincere eyes. "I could have--"

"But you didn't," Remus finished.

"Still. Thanks." He looked at them both with horror and regret and guilt and blame all vying for top position on his face, before casting his eyes at the ground, turning and claiming the stairs. As he was walking away, Lily fought a battle within herself and finally lost.

"Tom?" she called out. He turned and looked questioningly at her.

"Yes?"

"Listen," she said in the calmest tone she could manage, climbing the stairs with Remus beside her. "It could have happened to anyone."

"What?" Remus asked, probably shocked by her abrupt change in attitude, but Lily just needed to tell Tom this.

"I know you know how serious this was," Lily said to the fifth year. "I know it scared you, and it scared me too, which is why I snapped at Christopher and everything, but it still could have happened to anyone. You're not the first to come back to school drunk. The stairs moved and you happened to be in a bad position. That's all."

Tom shook his head. "I made a stupid choice."

"No," Lily cut him off. "Listen to me, sometimes people are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. You could have made it back to the tower just fine, if the circumstances had allowed it. But they didn't. You helped things along by drinking too much, but you didn't make this happen."

"Thanks," he mumbled, before leaving them alone as he climbed the stairs and disappeared from view into a corridor.

"What do you know? The badges actually helped someone find us," Lily quipped, trying to lighten the heavy silence.

"You-- you okay?"

"Yeah," Lily said, smiling without opening her mouth as she cast a look at Remus. "Sorry about all that. I feel like an emotional train wreck tonight."

"It happens."

"Not to me," Lily said petulantly. Then jokingly added, "Do you think that was enough excitement for one night? Let's cut out early."

"All right," Remus agreed. But as they climbed together he seemed to want to say something more. Lily looked at him with raised eyebrows and he finally said, "You know, that-- that scared me."

"Really?" Lily asked, surprised.

"Yeah," he said, sounding surprised at himself for admitting this information. "My hands were shaking as I worked on the stair."

"I didn't even notice," Lily said. "I was too busy worrying that if I dropped Tom he might very well have fallen to his-- fallen really, really far."

"Yep, probably would have made a really big splattering sound."

Lily choked out a bit of laughter out of pure shock. Had Remus really just said that? She looked at him. Yep. He had.

"That was a horrible comment," Lily said.

"Yeah, but come on." Remus winked at her. "It was funny."

"Only because he survived," Lily said. "If he'd actually fallen it would have been kind of sad."

"But at least then Gryffindor wouldn't have lost any points. Can't take points off a dead kid or his best mate, can you?"

Lily laughed again in sheer horror. "That's terrible."

"Definitely."

But though it was terrible, it had also let Lily smile again and made the whole situation feel a little more distant. In fact, the more Lily thought about it, the funnier it seemed. The kids had been so drunk that he gotten stuck between the stairs and the wall. Lily knew Tom pretty well. The thought of him acting less than proper was funny in and of itself. For him to be pissed was fantastic.

"Just out of morbid curiosity," Remus began as the pair drew closer to the tower, "does your chest still hurt?"

"What?" That certainly hadn't been what she'd expected.

"Earlier, you were holding your chest like it hurt," Remus explained.

Lily touched the sore spot on her chest out of habit. "Oh. Well. Yes, it did."

"Does it do that often?"

"Not really, no."

"Which is Lily-Speak for maybe three or four times a day," Remus interpreted. Lily nudged him with her shoulder.

"No, Mr. Detective. It only hurts when I do something stupid like run through several corridors and up a couple flights of stairs. Pomfrey said even that'll stop completely within the year." She let her hand drop to her side.

"Within the year?" Remus exclaimed. "What couldn't she fix?"

"Well, it wasn't her. It was the healers at St. Mungo's after the Ball." Lily had never mentioned this to anyone, actually, but it seemed natural to keep going. "From what Pomfrey could gather, the first curse that hit me caused my natural magical protection to waver so the second one actually reached my ribs and was still affecting them. The healers were so concerned with patching up the collapsed lung and broken ribs that they didn't think to check the bones for lingering curses. Pomfrey did, but said the spell had been there so long that it was going to take a lot longer to heal."

"What curse was it, to hurt you like that?"

Lily shrugged. "Something dark. It doesn't really matter. It hurt me, whatever it was, but now it's getting better."

"Aren't you angry?"

When Lily opened her mouth to reply, words seemed to fail her. She'd been prepared to answer questions about how she felt, questions about what it had been like. Hell, she'd even been ready for a sympathetic non-comment from Remus. But was she angry? She'd never thought about it. Sam and Tracy had asked if she was sad. They'd wanted her to cry. Dumbledore had told her to remember it all. The Inquisition wanted her to move on. Gertrude had made her realize she had no right to feel guilty. Everyone else just seemed to want to forget that it happened.

But did it make her angry?

Lily was surprised that she was angry. Very angry.

"Yes," Lily said wonderingly. "It does make me angry. Really angry."

"Good."

"Good?" Lily repeated, seeing the Fat Lady and trying to prolong this conversation. "Why good?"

"It's better than sad," Remus replied, shrugging. "Angry means you don't think you deserved it. Angry means you think something ought to have been different."

Lily thought about that for a moment, then turned away and nodded. "I guess it does. But let's talk about something different. How about the Quidditch game this weekend? You going?"

"Am I going to the game?" He sounded incredulous. "Of course I'm going to the game!"

"Why don't you and your friends sit with mine?" Lily asked in what she hoped to be a casual tone.

"What?" Remus looked confused briefly, and then seemed to click as he said, "Oh. Right. Sit with you."

"Yes, we'll all cheer like mad for James and Tracy zipping around up there, Sirius'll harass me a bit, Peter will help, and you can smack the back of their heads for me."

He looked pained and a little sad even as he forced a smile onto his face. "Actually, we kind of have a secret tradition that we can't break."

"Oh," Lily said, hurt by his obviously stupid excuse to avoid her.

Remus, noting her look, said, "It's not that I don't want to."

 _It's just that you don't want to,_ Lily thought, trying not to care as much as she did.

"You know what?" he said after a minute more. "It's not that big of a tradition, and I'd really like to sit by you."

"You don't have to," Lily said. She'd meant this to be an offhand suggestion, one that he could decline without problem. Still, though, it hurt to hear no.

"No," he said, looking terribly defeated, "I would love to sit by you."


	19. I'm sorry. I missed that. I'm an idiot.

On the way back to the common room after lunch on Wednesday, Lily, Sam, Tracy, and Christine found themselves making very amusing sickle bets as they walked down the corridor. After an amazing display of yodeling, Tracy now held the sickle. When Matt came into view, chatting with the Head Girl, Tracy's eyes took on a very mischievous look and Lily smirked.

"Lily, sickle if you kiss Matt," Tracy said, pulling the sickle out of her pocket. Lily's smirk dissolved. That wasn't funny.

Why was Tracy daring her to kiss Matt? Couldn't she see Remus (and his ever-present friends) walking toward them? Didn't she see Christine look over at her in shock before looking straight ahead and pretending like she didn't care? Tracy couldn't be so weird as to want Lily to kiss Christine's boyfriend. She just couldn't. But maybe Tracy still didn't know the two of them were dating.

Actually, that could be funny.

The group stopped moving as Lily walked over to where Matt was chatting with Diana.

"Matt?" Lily asked, addressing him. He looked at her questioningly. Diana did too, so Lily nodded her head at her.

"Yes?" Matt asked.

"Lean down. I need to win a sickle." As the Head Boy did, Lily went on her toes to peck him on the cheek.

"On the mouth!" Sam called out. Oh weren't those two having a grand old time with this? Lily quickly turned her head and pecked Matt on the mouth. He looked vaguely amused.

Lily sauntered back over to her friends, grabbed the sickle out of Tracy's hand, and missed the shocked and devastated looks on the faces of the approaching blokes.

"Lileeeee, what was that?" Sirius asked, walking up to her.

Lily ignored him, turned to Christine, and held out the sickle. "Christine, sickle if you kiss Matt."

Christine grabbed the sickle and walked right over to Matt McGrath, who watched their interaction with barely-concealed amusement. Scratch that: he watched them with barefaced amusement.

"Matt? Why does he get to be kissed so much?" Sirius asked Lily. "What about Sirius? I'll give Christine a sickle."

"To kiss you, I'd probably ask for a bag of galleons. Maybe three or four," Lily said, watching Christine reach a smirking Matt.

"You? No, no. I wouldn't want you to kiss me," Sirius said, propping an elbow on her shoulder as he too turned to watch Christine.

"You do wonders for my ego, Sirius," Lily commented, dipping her shoulder so that his arm slid off it. Matt was leaning against the wall when Christine wrapped her arms around his neck and pushed her lips against his. Diana made a choking noise. Lily smiled and looked over at her friends. Tracy's jaw dropped. Sam smiled softly at them. Sirius put his elbow back on Lily's shoulder and James looked shocked and a bit like he was trying to figure out a difficult Arithmancy problem.

"You certainly didn't have to remind her to kiss him on the mouth, did you?" Peter asked.

"Where are his hands going?" Tracy asked in a slightly panicked voice. "Because I know they aren't holding her hips right now. And I certainly know that this is the first time they've done this, right? Right?"

"No, they look like they've done this before," James said slowly. He sounded a bit angry and when he looked at Lily, she had to look away. Unfortunately, she looked right at Sirius, who raised his eyebrows suggestively and started mouthing the word 'Sputnik.' How she hated that boy. She dropped her shoulder to get rid of his elbow again and turned to Remus.

"Enjoy class?" she asked, determined not to look at James anymore. "It was a difficult assignment."

Remus nodded, looked at Sirius as if he was proving some point, and only then said, "Yes."

Lily waited to for him to elaborate. He didn't.

He really didn't like talking in front of people. Lily had learned that ages ago. When surrounded by a lot of people - in class or at the Quidditch game - he looked vaguely guilty for talking to her. Thus, Lily had determined to force him to talk with her anyway. But when Peter asked Remus a question, Lily found her attention returned (inevitably) to hear snatches of whispered conversation between Tracy and James even as she adamantly tried to convince herself she didn't care.

"Jealous were you?" Tracy asked. James mumbled something and Lily wondered what Tracy had done to cause him to be jealous. "Maybe you ought to do something about it."

"Don't want to right now," James replied. "How long have Christine and Matt been dating?"

"Obviously I don't know. Would you focus, James? I'm trying really hard to convince you to do something and you just sound like a child."

James messed up his hair and a strong wave of attraction hit Lily as James said, "I am doing something about it."

"What are you doing? Because you certainly seem to have given up on my plan."

Before Lily could even begin to wonder about the exchange, Christine returned, smirking as she twirled the sickle between her fingers. Matt had wandered away.

"You!" Tracy exclaimed. Christine didn't turn away from looking at Lily with a satisfied expression. Both girls smiled.

"Tracy's talking to you, Christine," Lily hinted in a mock whisper.

"What?" Christine asked, turning to Tracy.

"What was that?" Tracy gestures wildly in the direction of her brother's retreating back.

"What was what?" Christine asked, looking pleased with herself and trying to cover it up. Tracy didn't seem to like Christine's vagueness. Nope. Not at all. Lily decided to help out.

"She gave a good long kiss to her boyfriend," Lily stated, turning and walking toward Gryffindor tower. The others followed.

"He's not--" Christine began, but Lily cut her off.

"She gave a good long kiss to the bloke she's been kissing for a few months now," Lily amended, remembering Christine's distaste for commitment words, and smirking. Oh yes she was smirking.

"True," Christine said. Lily wondered if the fact that Matt hadn't pushed her to accept those commitment words had been part of the reason why she was so comfortable with him. Well, that and seven years of solid friendship.

"Months?" Tracy exclaimed, sounding rather angry.

"So if he's not your boyfriend, can I kiss him again?" Lily asked Christine, hoping to goad her a little.

"That wasn't a kiss." Trust Christine to find a loophole.

"So I can?"

"I don't want to talk about this." Christine turned and walked away.

Lily winked at Remus and told him, "That means no."

"Good to know. I was thinking about kissing him myself," James snapped. Caught off guard and unprepared to dismiss anything and everything he said, Lily laughed. 

 

 

**~*~*~**

 

In class that afternoon, Lily put her things next to Remus' as she sank into her seat.

"Tired?" he asked, smiling quietly at her rumpled state.

"I just turned in my seventh year project proposal," Lily replied, resting her head on her bag and closing her eyes.

"That was due in March," Remus pointed out, folding his hands on the desk.

"Which is why I definitely had to have it in by today," Lily said, patting his hand on the desk. "McGonagall was beginning to be a bit touchy about the subject."

A noise that sounded like a mixture of pain and annoyance made Lily sit up and look over to see James Potter entering the room. He had been looking at her, but when she caught him, he quickly turned and walked to the back of the room. Sirius Black, as always, accompanied him. They were like a pair of Siamese twins, really: one who hated Lily and the other who took pleasure in torturing her.

Sirius and Remus shared a look.

Lily knew what they were thinking: Remus should be sitting with James instead of with her. Well, too bad. Lily had just as much right to sit next to Remus as James did. What right did James have to be annoyed that Lily had taken his seat next to Remus? Why did he always look so frustrated when she sought out Remus' company? Lily understood that he didn't want to talk to her or be near her, his absences from Wednesday night study sessions made that abundantly clear, but why did she have to avoid his friends too? Still, he seemed bothered by her presence in any aspect of his own life. And that made her feel just _wonderful._

Lily turned away from him and back to Remus.

"How long is your essay?" Lily asked him, riffling through her bag to try and find hers.

"Meter," Remus sighed. Good. Sighing meant he had resigned himself to a conversation. It felt like a minor victory. She couldn't really understand his aversion to speaking with her during the day when they chatted for hours at night, but she figured he was just an intensely private person. She understood that.

"Nicely done," Lily said.

"Thank you." He eyes her bag with amusement and a bit of trepidation, as he always did. "How's F.A.D. coming along?"

"Oh!" Lily said, clapping her hands together and abandoning her hunt for the essay. "It's going well. Students are turning in more parchment than we anticipated, so we had to run off a couple hundred more sheets. The boxes are filling up quickly and McGonagall said we could use the prefect meeting room for two nights if it was necessary to sort them all."

"It's happening on the fifteenth, though?"

"Yep," Lily said, smiling. "April fifteenth, all the prefects will have a load to carry to each class. I'm excused all day."

"And the deadline for dropping notes in the boxes is when?"

"This Saturday, the seventh of April. Only four days away," Lily said, amazed that all of her preparation would finally come to fruition in just one week and a day. It was wonderful.

"Everyone seems to be really happy about the notes," Remus offered. Lily smiled and nodded at him.

"They do, don't they? People keep coming up and asking me if they are allowed to do different thing, like if they can include pictures or things," Lily answered. "Next year, I think we ought to include a part that lets the students buy and send sweets and roses with the attached messages. The money could go to a charity. My sister said her school started doing that the year she left."

"Next year?"

"Oh, right. I guess this may stop this year," Lily said, "but I'm hoping to convince McGonagall to let us do it again. That depends on how well this goes, though, doesn't it?"

"I suppose." Remus collected his parchment and straightened it. "Hasn't this been a lot of work for you?"

"Oh, tons," Lily said, sighing as she remembered organizing the boxes, writing up the proposal for Professor Dumbledore, listening to him announce the project in the Great Hall, answering questions from students, secretly assigning each prefect and head a group of students to write to, and making every prefect promise not to tell anyone the group they were assigned. She'd also had to make sure her project team knew what they were doing, knew when their boxes were full. Plus, she had to run a short, after-prefect-meetings meeting. But boy had she enjoyed it.

"So," Lily said, her eyes lighting up with mischief, "are you sending me a note? Saying, perhaps, 'Thank you, Lily, for being the greatest prefect partner in the world. Thanks for laughing at my silly jokes. For meandering with such grace. For generally making my entire life better just by saying hello to me.' Are you sending me something like that?"

"Would you want me to?" Remus looked uncomfortable.

"Well," Lily said, surprised that he hadn't cracked a smile, "I want to receive at least one note."

"I sure you'll receive at least one," he said, looking down at his desk.

"Oh, I know, the prefect in charge of the sixth year Gryffindors will send me a note, but I kind of want more than that," Lily said, turning back to her bag and resuming her hunt for her essay.

"Lily," Remus began, eying her bag mistrustfully, "I'm sure you'll receive more than one note."

"Is that because you're sending me one?" Lily asked, grabbing hold of a corner of her essay and yanking it through all of the rest of the mess in her bag.

"Not exactly."

"So you're not sending me a note?" Lily asked, actually feeling quite sad about that. She'd written one to him, thanking him for making patrols easier. She'd also written to Sam, Christine, and Tracy. She sure hoped (but didn't count on the fact that) they would write her back.

"We'll see," was Remus' response as the professor entered the room.

  

 

**~*~*~**

 

In the common room that afternoon, Lily was preparing to head out to the library when she realized she couldn't find her Astronomy book. She searched her bag. When she couldn't find it there she took out her Message Parchment and asked Sam. But before her raven-haired friend had the chance to respond, Lily started crawling on the ground searching under sofas and whatnot, which was how she learned that a third year was now dating a fourth year (a girl was whispering about it on the couch Lily was checking under).

But she still couldn't find her book and so she kept crawling.

"I can't keep doing this, James." Hearing Remus' voice, Lily stopped and was about to stand and say hi, but his words made her pause. What was James making Remus do?

"What? Why not?" James asked, he sounded both surprised and a little panicked.

"It's wrong," Remus said. "It's manipulative and mean."

Well, if James was in control of it, Lily wasn't surprised at that information. Okay. Maybe she was a little surprised. James wasn't mean or manipulative. Just arrogant.

"It's not," James said. "I just want her to-"

"I know," Remus interrupted, sighing, "but I can't keep doing this, giving you notes on the days. That Quidditch match- it all feels really wrong. You need to stop."

"I know. I know." Oh, James sounded defeated. Lily wanted to give him a hug. No one deserved to sound that sad.

"Hey, mate, you never know, maybe it'll all work out." Oh. Sirius was there too. Then again, when wasn't he with James? Unless, he was harassing Lily about James. Then he was normally alone.

"It won't. She- you should hear the things she says about me," James said. Lily wondered about whom he was talking, decided she didn't care, and reached a hand under the couch to see if her book was there. "She thinks I'm a conceited braggart."

"And?" Sirius asked. Lily smiled. Okay. Maybe Sirius was sort of funny.

"And she's still hung up on that other guy. Talks about him all the time," James answered. Lily's hand came in contact with a book-like object and stretched her fingers to try and grab it.

"It doesn't matter," Peter put in. Oh, it was the coven of them. Lily caught the top of the book with her right pointer finger and began dragging it over. "You need to tell her."

"And before Tracy finds out," Sirius put in. "She'll kill you if she finds out."

So they were talking about Tracy, Lily realized, losing grip on the book and having to put her fingers on top of it once more.

"I like her so much," James said. Aw. That was sort of endearing. He really liked Tracy. Good. Good for them.

"Yeah, we didn't get that from the amount of effort you put into this project," Peter said sarcastically.

"Nor the obsessive way he talks about her," Sirius said.

Lily finally brought the book out from under the couch and looked at the title. Crap, it wasn't her book at all. It was called _Transfiguration Prodigy_. She shoved it back under the couch and began crawling to the next one.

"But she's starting to like someone that isn't you," Remus said gently. What? That was news to Lily. Who did Tracy fancy, then?

"Yeah, I know." Even James' words seemed to be slumping.

"Don't be jealous, Prongs. It's you she likes. She just won't admit it yet," Peter said. Prongs? What the hell? Who was he calling a kitchen utensil?

"Yeah, I thought you were going to rip that bloke apart in the hall when she kissed him," Sirius added. "Though that was probably all part of Tracy's convoluted plan."

Tracy kissed another guy in the hall? To make James jealous? Oh. That was probably what they had been talking about today.

"She wants me to do something," James said.

"If only she knew what you were doing," Sirius said.

"She'd beat me to death with her beater's bat. I know. I know." James replied, and Lily could almost hear him shaking his head. "Sirius, if you would just tell me-"

"Nope." Sirius was smirking. Lily couldn't see his face, but she could hear that smirk in his voice. It was annoying even when she couldn't see it.

"Fine. That's all right," James said. "I think- I think I know who it is."

"Trust me, you don't," Peter said. Lily didn't really have time for this. She needed to get to her book. She went to the next couch and looked under it. Not seeing anything, she stretched her arm underneath. Where was that blasted thing?

"Do you think I should ask her out?" came the young voice of a boy. Geez, Lily thought, didn't boys ever talk about anything other than girls?

"You should send her one of those friendship notes. Ask her out in one," his friend suggested. Lily smiled. She loved this note idea. Score a point for Petunia's secondary school.

"But the prefects said they'll read through those."

"But it'll probably be Lily Evans that'll read through them all. She won't care. Won't say anything, either."

"Maybe you're right."

Huh. Younger students knew her name. How odd. Lily felt very uncomfortable having people discuss her, especially younger students she was sure she couldn't recognize. And that they trusted her made it even stranger.

So Lily continued crawling around the room, inadvertently eavesdropping as she went, searching for a book that was on her bed.

 

 

**~*~*~**

 

The next night, lying in her room reading through her Charms text, Lily was waiting for her patrol to start when Tracy came strolling in for a chat. Sure, a chat. At least, that was what Lily thought her friend had been doing. Until, that is, Tracy had shaken her hand and then fled the room, leaving Lily to read the note in her hand alone, in horror.

 

_11:00 - 1:30  
All Floors_

"No," Lily exclaimed after reading the note. She raced out the door, down the stairs, and into the common room in search of Tracy in the crowds of milling students. This could not be happening. No. Lily refused. She had a patrol that night. She could not play the Game and patrol at the same time. Remus would think they were under attack or something. No.

Sure, they hadn't played the game in months -- not since before February -- but they couldn't play tonight. While Lily did want to play, wanted to play a great deal, she did not want to play at the expense of scaring the living daylights out of Remus.

But Tracy was nowhere in sight, and Lily had a feeling that her friend would remain missing until the beginning of the game. Lily looked at her watch and noted the time: 10:15. She needed to meet Remus downstairs in a little under fifteen minutes and Tracy wanted the play the Game -- the top secret Game that they all swore to keep secret from any outsiders -- that night? No. It would not be happening.

And so, of course, the Game happened.

 

 

**~*~*~**

 

"Remus!" Lily called, running up to him as soon as she saw him standing in the main entrance.

"Lily!" he called back, imitating her frantic tone with a teasing grin.

"Hush. Listen. We need to talk," Lily began quickly. She was late. It was already 10:40; she'd spent a lot of time trying to stop the Game.

"Yes, we do," Remus agreed, sounding rather serious. But Lily certainly didn't have time for him to confess anything so she cut him off.

"I was thinking that you could take this patrol off," Lily said.

"What? Why?" He looked hurt, and Lily felt horrible. Good grief. Why did Tracy have to do this to her tonight? Lily did not want to scare Remus away.

"No reason. Just thought you might want a night off," Lily said, lying blatantly and knowing it was obvious but being unable to think of a cover fast enough. "It's a Thursday anyway, so there shouldn't be any problems."

"There are problems every night," Remus countered, still looking confused.

"But don't you want a night off?" Why wouldn't he? No one really wanted to patrol. Well, she did, but that had more to do with the company.

"Not particularly."

Frick.

"Of course you don't," Lily muttered, trying to think of a reason to keep him away from her. "Why don't we at least make this a split patrol? You know, I'll cover the southern half of the castle and you cover the northern."

Remus cocked an eyebrow. "Lily?"

"Yes?"

"What's going on?"

"What?" Lily asked, glancing back at her watch. "Nothing's going on. I just have a lot of work."

Remus shook his head as Lily looked back up. "I'm in all of your classes. I know that's not true."

"You aren't in all my classes," Lily protested, running through her schedule in her head. "I have a lot of Arithmancy work."

Remus looked amused. "That's odd."

"Why?"

"Because James didn't seem to have any." And there was Remus' telltale smirk. Argh! Who did he think he was to be that adorable?

"James probably does all his work on the night it's assigned. I'm a procrastinator," Lily explained. Remus laughed and then reached out and grabbed Lily by the shoulder, turning her so that they were walking side by side. She almost screamed in frustration.

"You don't have any work," Remus said. Lily felt ill. No. She didn't have any work. But she did have three best friends that were about to attack her in front of an unsuspecting Remus.

"Are you sure you don't want to take the night off?" Lily pleaded one last time.

"I'm sure." Maybe Tracy wouldn't attack Lily in front of Remus since she valued the secrecy of the Game so much, but Christine would definitely still be a threat, as would Sam.

"All right," Lily said, resigned. "Then you're going to have to help me out a little bit."

"Does this have anything to do with the reason why Tracy told us she couldn't hang out tonight?" 

Lily stopped walking and asked, "What?"

Remus shrugged. "Tracy was supposed to hang out with us tonight at midnight, but today she suddenly begged off."

"You were supposed to 'hang out' at midnight?" Lily asked, incredulous. "What were you all planning on doing?"

"Something against the rules," Remus said casually.

Lily sighed with relief. "Oh good. That means you won't mind what we're about to do. I wasn't sure how you felt about rule breaking."

Remus laughed a bit and smiled at her. "You thought I'd mind rule breaking?"

"I wasn't sure. You _are_ a prefect," she said honestly. While she had gleaned from his stories about pranks and nights out that Remus didn't much mind bending rules, in the stories James and Sirius always seemed to be the ones goading him and Peter into doing things.

"This is going to be fun, isn't it?" he asked, sounding both very excited and very much like Sirius Black. Lily laughed.

"I sure hope you think so."

"I'm sure I will--" The chiming of a clock cut off his words and Lily muttered the starting incantation. Names and numbers lit up on Lily's arm. She glanced down at the as-yet white lights on her arm and the clock that was counting down from two hours and thirty minutes.

"What the hell is that?" Remus whispered, pointing to her arm.

"That is the beginning." A spell flashed behind Lily. She grabbed Remus' hand and practically dragged him down the hall even as the names on her arm flashed blue, showing that Sam had taken the lead by stunning Tracy. Remus wrenched his hand out of hers and turned around as if to go back into the Main Hall.

"What are you doing?" hissed Lily, grabbing him again.

"Someone cast a spell back there," he said, struggling away from her grip. She ran in front of him and put her hands on his chest, halting his movements even as she glanced behind her.

"I can't explain right now, but that was Sam. She just stunned Tracy."

"Is Tracy okay?" The worry in his eyes endeared Remus to her all over again.

"She's fine. We're playing a game -- Christine, Tracy, Sam, and I. It's tag with spells, and you and I need to hide if we are going to keep me from losing horribly." She grabbed his hand and pulled him away again.

"What the hell is going on?" He still looked like he wanted to go back to the Main Hall and check on things.

"Shhh!" Lily said, pushing him into an empty classroom and locking the door behind her.

"We play this game a lot, but it's very secretive. We haven't told anyone, but either Tracy forgot I had a patrol or she thought this would make me lose," Lily whispered, worried that one of her friends may figure out where they were and break in.

"Do you normally win?" Out of all the questions he could have asked, he picked that one?

"Actually no. I haven't won in years," Lily replied. "You know, with my disgustingly horrible curse work it's a little difficult."

"So what are the rules?"

Lily and Remus stayed in the room for a while and whispered the rules and explanations. Remus caught on quickly and was soon only asking minor clarifying questions, like why her arm lit up green. Lily explained the color coordinated point system, the no-backs rule, and that the first person to get back to the common room within five minutes of the end of the Game received bonus points. But it was obvious that they had stayed in the room too long when the door flew up and Tracy, brandishing a wand, sent a spell at them.

The spell shot through the air and while Lily's first reaction was to cast the Shield Charm and block the spell (which she did), her second reaction was to feel overwhelmed by fear as flashbacks overwhelmed her. Her shield held against the first spell, but as that fear grew into panic and she started shaking and almost crying; her shield weakened. Her body wanted to crouch into a ball and run from the beams of light. She remembered the Death Eaters. The screaming women. She wanted to be safe, but the more fear she felt, the more her resolve to stay grew. She hated that she was so scared and she would not let it change her, no matter that she shook a bit at the memory.

She had been through this already. The first Game after the New Year's, Lily had been a wreck. After seeing the first spell of that Game, Lily, overrun with flashbacks of the Ball, had nearly collapsed.

But Lily had made a deal with herself that night: if the Prewetts could die with their backs straight, Lily Evans was most certainly not going to cower before the mere memory of the night. And yet her instincts still desperately wanted her to drop the shield and run.

"Well, don't be stupid," Remus snapped. His voice brought Lily crashing out of her memories and back into the present. He took hold of her left hand and pulled her behind the professor's desk, breaking her shield.

"What did you do that for?" Lily asked as a green spell flew overhead, briefly illuminating Remus.

"You cast a shield," Remus said as Lily reached over her head and shot a useless burst of light at Tracy to distract her.

"And?" Lily asked, determined to forget that moment of panic that caused her heart to beat too fast.

"You're never going to be more powerful than Tracy. Her offensive curses are too strong; they'd rip through your shield eventually. Play to your strengths." Rip through your shield. Like the Death Eaters' spells had.

"And what are my strengths?" Lily asked, sending a Tickling Jinx at Tracy. "If you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly the greatest curse caster."

"No, but you can use complex spells that Tracy and Christine and Samantha never could," Remus said as if she ought to know this already. Lily had flashbacks to Gertrude's words. She had called Lily a natural.

"What do you mean?"

Remus looked at her incredulously as if he thought she must be joking. Seeing that she was quite serious that reassessing-Lily look flashed across his face and he answered her, "Like in Charms today and with the Protective Transfiguration. You aren't more powerful than Tracy, but you can use spells she can't. You can manipulate magic better than probably anyone I have ever met. Use that."

A red spell curved around the desk and Lily had to act quickly to banish it away from her.

"How?" Lily asked.

So Remus explained and Lily listened. When Tracy scared Lily half to death by crawling onto the professor's desk and popping her head over the edge, Lily managed to banish her friend by pure instinct.

After that, Remus and Lily found themselves running out the door and into the throes of the Game.

That night, while her first instinct was always to cast a shield (or at least a charm to deflect the spell), Lily also managed to Transfigure a wall between herself and Christine that the other girl could not blast through.

Not that Lily won the Game. Didn't even come in second, but she did manage to trick and confuse Christine with that wall and one or two compounded charms. She made sure to go back afterward and, with the help of Remus, deconstruct the wall.

"It was dangerous to make a wall," Remus said as Lily walked up and began to unweave her wall. "If it had been someone stronger than Christine and your spell hadn't been as strong as it was, she could have blasted through and then bits of rock would have been hurtling at us."

Lily paused after vanishing some of the nearest stones. "I hadn't thought of that."

"Neither had I, really, until just now," Remus said, shrugging.

Almost every day until the next Game, Lily thought up new ways to combine spells and charms that had no potential danger (or relatively little at least). It was to little avail, of course, because though Lily never recognized it in herself, her greatest strength was always her instinct to protect people. Only after she cast her spell did she ever think to use one of her offensive spells.

 

**~*~*~**

 

That night, when Lily crawled into bed, she did not find herself wanting to talk about the Game or discuss what had happened. She didn't even want to think about it. She felt unnaturally tired and yet sleep would not come. The pure fear she had felt each and every time someone sent a spell at her had lessened, but she realized toward the end of the Game that she had never been worried about herself. Instead, the reason for her fear and her strength had come from the same source: Remus. She feared he would be hurt. She fought back to protect him.

Then, despite her best efforts, she thought about how horrible it must have been for the Prewetts to watch someone they loved die.

After hours of lying on her bed pretending like she might be able to sleep as time ticked away, Lily finally sat up. She glanced around the room -- the peaceful curtains hanging on their hangings, three beds silent, the sky outside resting peacefully as if Voldemort had never hurt a soul-- and Lily wanted to yell, throw a book at the wall as hard as she could, do anything she could to shatter the silence, to make her roommates feel unnerved.

Instead, Lily stood up and considered the three beds around her briefly before going over to Christine's bed and shaking her awake.

"Come on," Lily whispered. And Christine, being Christine, asked no questions before she pulled on her robe and followed Lily out of the dorm and out of the portrait.

Only after the pair was safely inside the secret passage that led to the back entrance of the kitchens did she finally say, "It's late."

"I want a strawberry daiquiri." Lily did not look at her friend as she put her right hand on the wall as she descended the stairs.

"I want a milkshake," Christine said.

Lily didn't have to face her friend to know that she was grinning at the thought of her favorite drink.

"You lost the Game," Lily said, smiling. The cool wall felt nice, solid, safe under her fingers.

Christine made an unhappy sound. "You cheated."

Lily's smile grew. "Did not."

"You made a wall."

"Is there a rule against that?"

"Should be," Christine said. "And I won the last one."

"The February Game?" Lily's hand dropped from the wall as she looked over at her friend. "You won that?"

"Yep." Christine looked entirely too happy.

Lily couldn't help but smile again at her friend's genuine pride even as she admitted, "I haven't won since second year."

"True."

"I'm horrible."

"True." The reached the end of the passage.

"Your sympathy is overwhelming," Lily said as she drew the smiley face on the wall.

"You came in third this time," Christine said as the pair marched through the wall.

"Yes, I did."

"Even with Remus helping you, you came in third."

"I get it. I'm horrible. I know," Lily said, turning away from Christine and ordering the drinks from the house-elf quickly.

As the tiny creatures popped away to collect the drinks, Lily took the time to look around the kitchens. She really did spend too much time there: dinners with Gertrude (and occasionally Sirius), snacks in the middle of the night, stolen meals. It was like a second home to her at this point.

"At least," Lily said, "I didn't have a horrible flashback and almost go crazy during this Game."

"You were fine last time," Christine said. "Just shaken. It happens."

Lily shook her head. "Not to me."

"To everyone."

_Walking alone in the halls, Lily tried to pretend like she wasn't terrified, like she didn't want to run back to the common room and the comfort of a warm, bright fire. Why was she so scared of these familiar, empty hallways?_

_But only too soon a spell came hurtling at Lily. She raised a shield though her hand (and consequently her wand) was shaking. Another spell and another came. Lily's shaking grew worse as began to truly panic as flashes of memory clouded her vision._

_"I can't-- I can't breathe," Lily whispered, trying so hard to push those memories away. Keep the shield up. Keep it up. Why was she seeing flashes of spells hurtling at her? Why was she suddenly remembering the feeling of landing on that table -- the horrific, overwhelming pain as something stabbed into her back and her wand cracked in her hand, breaking her fingers -- and shaking so hard that she was having trouble remembering where she was?_

_"Are you all right?" That was Christine's voice, wasn't it? Wasn't it? What was she doing at the Ball? She was not supposed to be there._

_"Run," Lily muttered, reinforcing her shield with more power. "Run, they're coming."_

_And they were. Those black hooded figures were marching towards her. They were going to kill her, Lily knew, but she couldn't breathe. Breathing hurt her chest. Thinking hurt her chest. Oh God. She was going to die._

_"Wait. You're not dying. Calm down." Christine looked worried. "Are you all right?"_

_"They're coming. They're coming. They'll--" Lily remembered that someone had grabbed her arm, her wrist, and then she was taken away by Portkey, throwing up in transit, screaming after the bile had come out. And the flashes of light bulbs -- cameras -- had been in front of her and someone held her, asking if she could speak._ She's in shock, _they said._

_"Lily!" A hand slapped her face and the feeling of tangible pain brought her back, pulled her out of that memory. Lily saw Christine looking determined, pulling her out of her memory. And suddenly Lily's arms were around her, clinging to the solid presence._

_"It hurt, Christine," she whispered through her tears, as if realizing it for the first time. As if remembering the Ball for the first time. "It hurt so much."_

_"It was just a stunner." Christine sounded very confused._

_"The Ball," Lily whispered into her friend's shoulder, unwilling to let go lest she fall back into her uncovered memories._

_"Oh. Yes. I suppose it did." Christine wrapped her arms around her friend and nodded too._

_"When will it become easier?" Lily asked._

_"Now."_

_And she was right. Standing there, holding her perpetually unshakable friend, Lily felt the dark memories recede. Of course, she quickly felt like a fool for her outburst, but that didn't mean she loosened her hold or anything._

"Your daiquiri, Miss." The tiny house elf in front of Lily held the red drink in both hands above her head and Lily took it with a grateful smile as she tried to push away the memory of the Ball and that Game.

"Thanks," Lily said. Christine, she saw, also had a drink in her hands. "So, let's talk about something else."

"Okay," Christine said, putting her straw in her mouth.

"How's Matt?"

Christine shrugged. "Fine."

"Anniversary coming up?"

"I don't want to talk about this," Christine said. "How are your patrols?"

Lily froze. "What do you mean?"

"You like your patrol partner," Christine said in such a matter of fact way that Lily choked on her drink.

"What? No," Lily said. Then, knowing that lying to Christine was likely to result in prolonged harassment, Lily asked, "How did you know?"

"I thought everyone knew," was the only response. As if that ought to be enough of an explanation for Lily.

"No. Really. How?"

"Easy," she replied, still annoyingly vague, though Lily was sure her friend thought she was being way too vocal.

"Have you told anyone?"

"No." Christine crinkled her nose in distaste.

Lily considered this situation. Christine knew how she felt about Remus. That could be a disaster: her friends often referred to Christine as the Open Source as she was a source of constant information, no matter how supposedly secret it was. Case and point: Lily's birthday surprises. But Christine, out of all of Lily's friends, knew what it was to want no one to know a secret. Besides, when Lily wanted to blow apart a room, Christine was one of the few people that could make her forget her irritation.

"I really like Remus," Lily whispered. Then she felt stupid for whispering.

"Remus?"

"Yep." Lily still not understanding how Christine learned about her crush. Christine looked briefly confused, then shrugged as if accepting something.

"Do you snog him on patrol?" Christine asked.

Lily shook her head. "No."

"Not even once?"

"No," Lily repeated.

Christine looked disappointed.

"Do you know how long James and Tracy have been dating?" Lily ventured.

"They aren't dating," Christine said.

"Oh." So Tracy hadn't even told Christine, had she?

"No. Really. Tracy likes some seventh year on the Quidditch team."

"What? Since when?" Maybe that had been what James and his friends were talking about when they said Tracy had kissed some bloke in the hall.

"I don't know."

Well, that was certainly news. Had James and Tracy broken up? Lily resolved to ask Sirius about it. Of course, after she did that, he burst into laughter and hugged her again, which was no answer. Lily decided she needed new sources of information.

  

 

**~*~*~**

 

Friendship Appreciation Day started well and ended well. In between there was confusion, hyperactivity, sabotage attempts, and just generally a wonderful time. A brilliant time, really. Especially for Lily, who spent the two nights previous overseeing the sorting of the thousands of notes.

Two prefects appeared in the doorway in front of Lily and the one on the left said, "We're here for the second year Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff boxes."

Lily lifted herself out of the chair where she'd been hurriedly eating a bagel (breakfast had started but she was in charge of the distribution room all day and needed to be there before the first classes, when the prefects came to pick up the stacks they were to deliver).

"One moment," Lily said, picking up and moving around the shoebox-size boxes until she located the two labeled 'Hufflepuff Second Years.' "Here are the Hufflepuffs."

One of the two boys in the doorway, a Slytherin fifth year prefect, walked forward and took the boxes.

"The Ravenclaws should be over in that corner. I'll grab them," Lily said, stepping across the stacks of boxes until she reached the Ravenclaw corner and found those second years. There were two boxes for them too.

"And I just open these boxes?" the Slytherin asked as Lily gave the Gryffindor seventh year his boxes.

"Yes. I think you're both going to their Potions class, so just open the door at the beginning or end of the lesson, tell the professor you're there, lift the lids of the box, and the parchment will float to their recipients."

"What if the floating and locating charms don't work?"

"Then hand them out yourself. The student's name ought to be on the top of each note."

"All right," he said dubiously, turning and leaving the room. At least they'd been punctual. Lily sat back down in her chair. She was in charge of this room, and it was the first time she had seen the notes all in the same room.

Sorting them had been fun. She'd split the prefects into two different rooms by house to ensure that they wouldn't accidentally look at one of their own notes. The Ravenclaws and Gryffindors sorted the Hufflepuff and Slytherin notes and vice versa. Oh this was fun.

Lily had agreed to run the distribution room until her last class of the day, which was History of Magic for her, because that was when her year's notes were delivered. The prefects had all agreed that the younger years' notes ought to be delivered whenever the assigned prefect had a break, but that the upper years ought to receive theirs in History of Magic, as that was the only class when an entire year was guaranteed to be together.

Lily would have actually preferred to receive her notes in private, but Matt had told her that wasn't an option: he was taking over the room and she was receiving her notes (or at least one note since a prefect had to have written to her) in class.

"First year Gryffindors," Gertrude announced, walking into the room with a nod. Lily smiled.

"You have the morning off?"

"Yes."

"Didn't you write your notes to the Gryffindor first years?" Lily asked, crawling over the table to the Gryffindor corner. This would definitely be easier once more of these boxes were picked up.

"That's a secret," Gertrude replied.

"Come on, tell me who you wrote to!"

"You're the one that insisted the prefects write to a certain year to ensure that everyone receive notes and that they tell no one the year they wrote to in order to avoid hurting someone's feelings." Gertrude sounded vaguely disgusted by the idea, which amused Lily. She could only imagine how horribly uptight Gertrude's notes were. To whom it may concern. Have a good year. - G. Wrightman

"Yes, I want secrecy," Lily said, scanning the boxes, "but you can tell me."

Noting Lily's difficulty finding the proper boxes, Gertrude asked, "Wouldn't it be easier to summon the boxes?"

"Well," Lily said, feeling stupid, "I guess so."

"Do you want me to do it?" Even Gertrude sounded amused that Lily had forgotten to use magic.

"No," Lily said, Summoning the boxes. "I want you to tell me who you wrote to."

Three boxes flew out of the stack and Lily had to scramble to banish them mid-air to the table near Gertrude. The blonde girl collected the boxes from the table and looked at Lily with her clear blue eyes.

"I will never tell you who I wrote to," she said, walking out of the room.

  

 

**~*~*~**

 

Every couple of minutes a new prefect would come in to pick up a box and soon Lily had perfected the art of summoning multiple boxes. The older years were doing respectably, receiving an average of three boxes per house, but it was the fifth years that were pulling ahead. The Ravenclaw fifth years alone had received five boxes worth of notes. That seemed excessive, even if all three of the house's chasers were in that year.

"Hello, Lily."

Lily turned to smile at the familiar voice.

"Hey, Remus," she said. "What are you picking up? I'm running out of boxes. Lunch was a big rush."

"Professor McGonagall."

Lily nodded and summoned two boxes from the middle of the table before handing it to Remus and watching him turn and leave.

Probably one of the most surprising things that had happened in the sorting was finding that many students had written to the professors. Some of the notes to professors were anonymous, but all of them were kind and encouraging. Many told them that they had changed that student's life.

It had been a wonderful feeling, reading notes to the professors.

So the sorting had come to accommodate the professor notes with a pile all their own in the middle of the room. It was interesting to note that Professor McGonagall received the most and Professor Dumbledore the least. But then, Professor McGonagall was a large presence in everyone's life (plus, Lily suspected that Sirius had written her quite a few love notes), while Professor Dumbledore was brilliant and aloof.

It had never crossed Lily's mind to write any of her professors a note. She felt vaguely bad about that.

 

 

 

**~*~*~**

"Having fun?" Matt asked, walking into the distribution room. Lily lifted her wand and leveled it at him. "Obviously not."

Lily jabbed her wand at him. "I have a bone to pick with you."

"That sounds unpleasant."

"Why," Lily asked, standing and walking toward him, "aren't the Gryffindor sixth year boxes here?"

Matt smiled, looking positively hot. "Because I didn't want you to be tempted to look at them."

"I searched high and low for them," Lily said. "I summoned and banished as well as I could and still they did not come. I thought I'd lost them."

Matt shook his head and patted his satchel. "I have them."

"Good to know!" snapped Lily.

"Lily?" Matt said, looking entirely too self-assured and confident.

"Yes?" Lily asked, irritated as she lowered her wand to her side.

"Go to class."

"I don't want to." Lily was pouting. She had wanted to make sure she'd received a note.

"Go on. Stumpy's waiting for you in the hall."

"Do you walk each other to class now?" Lily asked. Matt laughed.

"She'd be horrified by that idea. No, it's your whole motley crew, waiting to be reunited."

Lily eyed him suspiciously. "You have the boxes?"

"Yes."

"All right. There are only a few left," Lily said, pointing to each of the corners, and then to the middle of the table. "No one's come to collect Professor Dumbledore's yet."

"That's my responsibility," Matt said, opening the door and jerking his head as if to suggest that Lily really ought to leave.

"I'm going. I'm going."

"Not fast enough!" Christine said from beyond the door.

"Seriously. Could you move any slower?" Tracy added.

"I just wanted to make sure Christine didn't want to kiss her boyfriend goodbye," Lily said sarcastically. Matt laughed as Tracy made a disgusted face and Christine looked exasperated.

"He's not my boyfriend."

  

 

**~*~*~**

 

Walking through the corridors, it was easy to notice the increased noise level. Everywhere, students were running up to one another, holding out a handful of notes.

"Lily!" called a small voice just as she reached the History of Magic class. She turned to find Will McGrath running toward her.

"Hello Will." In addition to looking like his usually adorable self, Will seemed even more cute since he appeared to be covered in glitter.

"Look at all the notes I got!" He held out a handful of notes. He looked like a Christmas ornament.

"Wow." Lily couldn't help but wonder where he could have taken a bath in glitter. Or what charm someone used to cover him.

"But I didn't get one from you," he complained, eyes narrowing at her even as he clung to his notes.

Lily instantly felt guilty. It hadn't even occurred to her that Will might want a note from her. "I only sent four. I was really busy organizing."

"I sent you one," he said, but then his frown split into a grin and he started laughing.

"What?" Lily asked, watching the rest of her year and the Ravenclaws file into class.

"I got one from a secret admirer."

Lily smiled. "Really?"

"Yeah, and look at the handwriting! It had to be an older student!" Will bounced up and down. Lily was never gladder that she and all of the prefects had agreed not to tell anyone that they were writing secret notes. And it was adorable that one of the prefects had signed their note 'from your secret admirer.'

"Next year," Will said, taking his note back and stuffing it in his pocket, "you have to write me two notes!"

"It's a deal."

"I have to go tell Chad about this!"

"Bye, Will," Lily said, stepping in the class.

"Why do my brothers always look more excited to speak with you than me?" Tracy asked from the back of the room.

"It's not just your brothers," Sirius said. Lily smiled.

"It's because I flog him," Lily stage-whispered as she put her things down next to Christine at the front desk. She heard a snort of laughter in the back and turned smiling, expecting to see Remus. Instead, she saw that it was James Potter, sitting next to Remus, who was smiling. That was certainly--

"The eleventh century Druid wars began because of various factors, including..." Professor Binns began, gliding through the front wall. Lily sat down and, for what must have been the first time in her life, did not take out her supplies. All she could think about were the F.A.D. notes to come. The rest of the class seemed equally distracted. Everyone was poised on the edge of their seats, watching the door as Professor Binns lectured. And lectured. And lectured.

"Where're the notes?" Christine asked Lily.

"I don't know. Matt had them."

"Why?"

"He didn't want me peeking."

"You cheated!"

Lily gave Christine a long look and then said, "Obviously I didn't cheat since Matt stole the boxes."

"You would have cheated," Christine said as if it were just as horrible a crime.

"Duh," Lily replied.

"True," Christine agreed, nodding, though Lily wasn't exactly sure what they were agreeing about. Except where were their notes? It couldn't really have taken that long to bring them over. After all, they were on the same floor-

Then the door swung open and a fifth year Hufflepuff stepped forward, looking uncertain.

"Excuse me, Professor? I have a delivery," he said.

Professor Binns continued lecturing until the boy introduced himself again in the louder voice. The ghost seemed surprised at being address. "What, Mr. Cra- Cropple?"

"I'm sorry to interrupt, sir. I'm delivering--"

"Ignore the ghost! Open the box!" called a voice from the back. There was scattered laughter and a whole lot of nodding. The boy smiled shakily and did so.

Whatever Lily had been expecting when she'd asked Professor Dumbledore to charm the boxes and notes, it wasn't fireworks and rainbow glitter to shoot out along with the notes. That seemed much too extravagant. Nor was she expecting the students to be charmed into jumping onto their desks and synchronously singing and dancing. Luckily, the latter didn't happen. Unluckily for students like Lily who were sitting in the front of the room, the former did.

For the rest of the day, she would wipe glitter off her robes.

"As I was saying," muttered Professor Binns, beginning to lecture again.

But Lily didn't care what the professor was saying. She was too busy staring down at her empty desk.

She had only received one note. A note from her 'secret admirer,' and while it was a very nice note in and of itself - it mentioned specific things she'd done like organize this day and conjure her favorite Muggle ice creams - it was still disappointing that none of her friends had sent her even a single note.

The fifth year deliverer slipped out the door and Professor Binns began lecturing again as the students ruffled through their notes.

Lily was not disappointed. Lily was not disappointed. Oh, who was she kidding? Lily was very disappointed. One note? One note from someone she had forced to write her!

Christine, sitting next to Lily, was looking chirpy.

"Happy much?" Lily asked.

"Matt sent me three notes." Oh how cute. How adorable. How vaguely annoying. Sam was sitting in the back corner of the room, looking like the loner Lily knew she wanted to become. She wasn't even reading her notes.

Tracy, Lily saw, had a virtual mountain of notes on her desk that James Potter kept trying to steal and read. Lily smiled as she saw James tap Tracy on the right shoulder and then reach out and steal one while she was looking at Sirius. The fool, even Lily knew that was the oldest trick in the book.

But when James lowered the note, a playful smile on his lips, he caught Lily's eye and for a moment they smiled together, sharing a private joke. Then they both realized what they were doing and turned away, but not immediately. No. They nodded at each other and then James cast his eyes down to the note in his hand and Lily turned back to her single note.

A small ding caught Lily's attention and she pulled out her Message Parchment and read:

_Lily. Making eyes at Sputnik? Sirius._

_Sirius. How did you get this parchment? Lily._

_Easy. Stole Tracy's._

_Oh. Good to know that you have no qualms about stealing._

_You were STARING at Sputnik._

_I strongly dislike you._

_You won't after dinner tonight._

_Why?_

_Did you like my note?_

_What note? What about dinner?_

_'What note?'? The one I sent you. I notice I'm lacking a note from you, by the way._

_I didn't get a note from you._

_Sure. Lie to cover up._

_I didn't!_

_Remus got a note from you! He's reading it right now. Remus. He, may I mention, is NOT your best friend._

_Well. You're my SECRET best friend. Secret. Couldn't have me writing you a note and blowing our cover, could I?_

"Professor?" The door had opened while Lily sat messaging Sirius, revealing Matt holding three boxes. "Sorry, but I hadn't realized there was more than one box for this group."

"What?" the professor asked. Matt ignored him, winked at Lily, and opened the two other boxes. Lily was going to murder him later, Head Boy or not. Glitter showered the class once more and then a flurry of notes flew up and around the class, settling down with various students. Lily was really going to have to clean her robes.

Lily's mouth dropped open as the pile in front of her grew. Well. All right. Lily wasn't exactly swimming in notes like Tracy and James, who were both on the Quidditch team, but she had a couple handfuls. And that had to count for something. People liked her. Really liked her. It was wonderful.

"In 1654..."

Oh dear. Professor Binns was talking. Lily looked over at Matt, who was eying her pile and giving her a look as if to say, And you only expected one note? She shook her head at him and waved goodbye. Binns kept lecturing. Lily blatantly ignored him and read her notes.

_To: Lily Evans_

_Hey Lily!_

_Thanks for creating Friendship Day! This is so much fun. I've written over fifty notes to all of my best friends!_

_Celia Arnold_

Who was Celia Arnold? Lily slowly thought of all the prefects that she knew, but none of the girls were named Celia. Not even a nickname that could have even vaguely resembled a Celia. The note was placed in Lily's right pocket as she picked out another note to read. This time she scanned the name and smiled to see that it was from Will.

_To: Lily Evans_

_Thanks for the flogs and whipping. Even if I lose too many points. See you! Not at night or anything. Just soon. Ok. Bye._

_Will McGrath_

  

 

**~*~*~**

 

All in all, that had been Lily's least productive History of Magic class ever. Well, at least in terms of doing actual schoolwork. If she considered smiling productive, Lily would have excelled. Sixteen people had sent her notes: Sam, Tracy, Christine, Will, Matt, Sirius, Kevin, Celia, Tom (the drunk fifth year that Lily and Remus had saved), her prefect "secret admirer," Ruth (the seventh year Gryffindor prefect), a Ravenclaw from her Astronomy class, two anonymous ones, and Remus.

Walking to the kitchens that night, while Lily was hard-pressed to name a favorite, she acknowledged that it was impossible to doubt that Sirius's was the strangest:

_To: Lily Evans (shhhhh)_

_SBFF (you know what it stands for, but I can't write it out for fear of interception),_

_I've decided to write a list to each of my friends, of which you are definitely not one (ha! That'll trick them). Now, onto the list of things that I appreciate about you:_

_1) Your sarcasm_  
_2) Your undying love of Russian Space Satellites_  
_3) Your complete and utter blindness (see #5 for details)_  
_4) The blouse you wore on March 28th (the day I wrote this)_  
_5) The way you think Sputnik hates you_  
_6) The way you yell at Sputnik (as if satellites can hear! That ought to fool them again!)_  
_7) Dinners with you (including the one we are having the day you receive this)_  
_8) Your Herbology book_  
_9) Strawberries (not necessarily something I like about you as much as I like in general and which you ought to consider when you are picking out the next gift that you buy me - which ought to be soon)_  
_10) I can't think of a tenth thing so I'll just write that I like your hair, which girls seem to like hearing, even though it isn't as if they made their hair. It was just luck._

_Okay. I'm done. See you at dinner!_

_Sirius_

Oh yes. That bloke was crazy. Not that Lily cared. She found it kind of reassuring in its own way. Even if he told anyone about how Lily used to feel about James (and she was firm in her belief that she no longer felt that way about James as she was now thoroughly obsessing over Remus) no one would believe him, the stupid bugger.

But still, she was going to this dinner and she didn't know quite what to expect. She and Gertrude were supposed to meet in the kitchens and Lily wouldn't be at all surprised to find Sirius Black popping in. But why he would be so excited about that idea was beyond Lily. He had popped in on their dinners before. What would make this one so special?

"Lileeee."

"There's the voice of my dreams," Lily replied, not bothering to turn and address Sirius. Actually, not even bothering to slow her pace.

"Secret best friend?" Sirius called out. Lily could hear Sirius' feet racing to catch up with her.

"Forever," Lily finished. Actually, as she felt Sirius arm wrap around her shoulder, she thought she heard another set of footsteps and tried to turn, but Sirius's hold prevented it.

"Where's my note?" he asked as they stopped in front of the sliding panel and Lily pushed it in and to the side. Yes, there were definitely steps behind them.

"Still on about that, are you?" Lily asked.

"He'll never let it go." That voice. Lily froze, hand on the railing. Sirius wouldn't have. He couldn't have invited James, right? Right? He would have told her.

"I don't suppose he will," Lily said, turning to face the inevitably attractive face of James Potter. She was sure her voice sounded thin and tight. And she was sure, with his wind-swept hair, dancing eyes, and grin, that she had never wanted to kiss him more. Freaking hell! What was wrong with her?

"He still hasn't forgiven me," James was saying, "for that time in first year--"

"You stole my parchment!" Sirius said.

James shook his head. "We were eleven. Move on."

"I was twelve."

"Oh. Well that's different, then." James moved his left arm in a sweeping gesture. "Go ahead and continue with the bitterness."

Sirius nodded. "I will, thanks."

Somehow, Lily descended the stairs. Though she couldn't remember the in-betweens or the conversation that covered the span of time, she eventually found herself facing the wall at the bottom of the stairs.

"Well, are you going to open it?" Sirius asked, placing his elbow on her shoulder. Lily looked at him, pulling herself out of her numb state.

"You're an idiot," Lily said, stepping forward and drawing the happy face on the wall.

"Did you see what she did?" Sirius asked James. "What was that hand motion?"

"It wasn't a hand motion. She was drawing--"

"Don't tell him," Lily interrupted, imploring James to stay silent. "Let him figure this one out himself. It'll do his ego good."

"I'll figure it out someday, and then I'll be even prouder of myself, Lileee." Sirius Black deserved a good thwack over the head. Maybe two or three.

Gertrude Wrightman sat at the small wooden table inside the Kitchens. Her posture, as always, was perfect. Lily felt herself straightening her shoulders as she approached.

Leaving James and Sirius behind, she went to Gertrude and whispered, "James Potter's here. If you don't want him to think we know each other, you should probably leave."

Gertrude nodded and said, "I knew he was coming."

"You knew?" Lily asked. "What are you omniscient?"

"Sirius asked if he could bring him." Gertrude stood and faced the door.

"Sirius asked permission? Are you joking?" Now Lily wanted to flick Gertrude in addition to Sirius, and she'd never wanted to flick Gertrude before. This was the effect James Potter's presence had on her.

"Sirius has always asked permission," Gertrude said.

"Not to meddle in my life," Lily murmured. The bloke in question was laughing with James, who flattened his hair.

"That's because he thinks he's helping you," Gertrude replied. The blokes chatted with a house-elf. Or James chatted with a house-elf and Sirius clapped him on the shoulder.

"Helping me?" Lily repeated, glaring at Sirius and his high cheekbones and strangely proper mannerisms.

"I don't know if he's doing more harm or good," Gertrude said quietly to Lily before turning back to face the door, "but I agree with his intentions."

"Again with the vague clues. Do you and Sirius get together and practice how to make me feel left out?" Lily asked, annoyed.

"Actually, yes. We practice Tuesdays at noon," Sirius said, walking up and kissing Gertrude on the cheek before taking his place on the side of the table opposite the blonde girl.

"I'm happy to know you think my life's a joke," Lily muttered.

"At least he doesn't think _you're_ a joke," James said helpfully as Lily and he moved to complete the table: Lily sat by Sirius and James by Gertrude.

"Thank God for small favors," Lily muttered. Then, in a louder voice, "What are we having for dinner?"

"Today's James' birthday. I thought we should celebrate," Sirius said.

"It's your birthday?" Lily asked, too surprised to remember to avoid talking to James, looking at him, or lusting after him. He smiled directly at her and nodded. Lily's breath literally caught in her throat. He was so very attractive. Lily needed to remind herself that she liked Remus.

"Happy birthday," Gertrude said, smiling at him. Lily was caught off guard by the softness of her face as she smiled and almost stared at her. Gertrude looked rather innocent and young with that smile on her face.

"Happy birthday," Lily offered, wondering why James wasn't spending the day with Tracy. Maybe Christine was right and they'd broken up. Maybe Tracy was interested in someone else. Maybe Lily should quit thinking about that and just focus on eating. But James surprised her again but thanking both of them and then asking what they wanted to eat.

 

 

 

**~*~*~**

"What do you mean you take April Fool's day off?" Lily asked James, who was leaning toward her with his elbows resting on the table.

"It builds tension to do the unexpected," James said. Lily laughed at the logic. Sirius grinned as if he was rather proud of his group's strange tradition.

"So you don't pull any pranks?" Lily asked with a smile.

"No, but the professors are on edge all day thinking that one year we'll pull the biggest prank of the year that day, just because it's April Fool's." James was practically overflowing with mirth as he recounted this tradition and Lily had to admit that he looked good that way.

"Don't you think that pranking is childish?" Gertrude asked. Lily looked over at her and couldn't keep a smile off her face. Lily doubted she would ever see anything as interesting as Gertrude Wrightman eating fish and chips. The two definitely did not go together.

"Childish?" James repeated, horrified.

"Childish?" Sirius repeated a moment later. They looked at each other and shook their heads sadly.

"We are bringing a new art form back to Hogwarts," James said, turning to Gertrude and emphasizing his point by jabbing the table with his pointer finger.

"We are bringing laughter back to Hogwarts," Sirius added condescendingly.

"We are bringing mirth--"

"Joy--"

"Gooey green balloons that explode randomly--"

"And a giant rubber ducky back to Hogwarts," Sirius said. Lily smiled, wondering what that was about. Gertrude looked at whichever bloke was speaking in a steady disapproving way.

"Besides--" James said, catching Sirius' eye.

"They all deserve it," they said together, smiling at their obviously rehearsed routine.

"I feel seasick watching them speak," Lily mock-whispered to Gertrude across the table.

"It _is_ distracting," Gertrude said, still not looking pleased with their flippant responses.

"Distracting?" Lily asked. "It's like they're sharing one brain between them. Not that that's a surprise, considering how silly most of their pranks are, but-- hey!" Sirius had flicked her. Flicked her!

"One brain between the two of us?" Sirius repeated. "I will have you know that we are two of the best students in our year, aren't we James?"

Lily cast her eyes over to Gertrude and rolled her eyes as she waited for James' egotistical response.

"Actually, I think Lily is a better student than us," James said. What?

"There's very little doubt about that," Gertrude added. Wait. What? Had James just said that? Gertrude was slowly chewing her food, staring at Lily, then turning to consider James.

"There is certainly some doubt about that," Lily said. Gertrude only stared at her until she was about to say something again, but then the blonde Slytherin turned and nodded at Sirius. Lily glared. "Your silent communication thing is still really irritating."

"They've done it since forever," James said, addressing Lily. "Irritates the hell out of me, too."

There were various things that seemed strange to Lily at that moment. The first was that Gertrude and Sirius had actually been around James enough for him to notice the nodding. The second was the way James spoke so casually with Lily. He talked as if they were old friends, as if he had forgotten that she had been obsessed with him, as if he had not avoided her for months.

"Well, your tendency to underestimate yourself irritates me," Gertrude told Lily, who shook her head.

"It's not underestimating if you've really failed out of a class," Lily said, taking her napkin out of her lap and placing it on her plate.

"I knew you were going to say that," James said, locking eyes with Lily. The look her sent her felt intimate again, like the look of a friend. She desperately wished he would stop doing that. Yet the way he was talking, making her laugh, understanding her muttered comments, Lily might have been inclined to believe they were friends. Except that he was James Potter and she was Lily Evans. Yes, that always seemed to get in the way.

"Sirius," Gertrude said, her eyes locked on James, "we need to speak."

"Privately?" Sirius asked, tilting his head slightly to the left.

It struck Lily what a strange group they would seem to anyone else -- a Slytherin prefect, a Gryffindor prefect, and two notorious pranksters -- and what an unexpectedly perfect group they seemed to be together, munching on a hidden birthday dinner.

"Privately," Gertrude agreed, turning to finally meet his gaze. Sirius looked at her, grey eyes meeting blue. Lily had often felt that Sirius and Gertrude did not belong to the right era. They were too classically beautiful, too graceful, and too elegant to be teenagers in the 1970s. At the very least, Lily could never imagine them attending secondary school with Adrianna and the other kids she had seen over Christmas holiday. As they stood and left through the door, Lily felt once again that they belonged in a castle.

With Sirius and Gertrude gone, everything changed. Became rather awkward. Frick.

"You spend a lot of time with Sirius, don't you?" James asked. Lily was surprised by the question, but grateful that he took the initiative to break the silence. She deeply hated awkward silences.

"I suppose so." Lily shrugged, meeting his gaze. "So do you, I notice."

"McGonagall has begun putting us in detention at the same time in different parts of the castle," James said, smiling. "She says we need some alone time."

Lily smiled at that thought.

"He's kind of like a leech," Lily said jokingly. "Once he's with you, he never lets go."

James nodded, looking happy. "Quite loyal, that one is."

"Oh yes," Lily said, smiling some more. "And he's just genuinely fun. Much as he annoys me, he is fun to be with. Don't tell him I said so, though."

James smiled hugely. "I won't. He'd be much too pleased with himself."

Lily nodded.

Still smiling, though it was a softer, fonder smile, James said, "I can't imagine all of the trouble I would have missed out on if he hadn't been here. At the very least, I wouldn't have been arrested."

Lily laughed out of pure shock. "Arrested? You were arrested?"

"Just once. It was a long time ago." James laughed, too. "Sirius was convinced the Muggles wouldn't mind if we broke into their store and I was convinced I needed to some of those sweets. He was terribly shocked when the police arrived and immediately offered them some of the food. Sirius is very different."

"Different," Lily repeated, testing out the word. "Yes, Sirius is definitely different. He's just--" She stopped herself and shrugged.

"What?" James asked, twisting in his seat to lean against the wall.

"He's just nothing like he wants everyone to think he is," Lily said. "He's not carefree and happy all the time. In fact, most of the time he's angry and doesn't want to admit it. Sometimes I can almost see guilt overwhelming him, which normally makes him that much angrier. It's right after that when he normally pranks another student." Mortified by the fact that James' presence could induce her to say so much that she felt quite idiotic, Lily wondered if bashing her head against the table a couple of times would make her feel better. "Just ignore me."

"Never," James said, shaking his head slightly. "I know what you mean about Sirius."

Lily looked at him skeptically. "You do?"

"Yes. Sirius is-- he's complex." Memories clouded his face and Lily wanted to ask about that, but refrained. She didn't actually know James very well and that might be asking too much. "My mother adores him. Probably more than she adores me, actually."

Lily smiled. She could have guessed that Sirius would know how to impress parents. "He is very polite."

Now James looked skeptical. "Sirius?"

"Oh yes. Though he tries his best to cover it up, he has the accent and innate manners of a person raised in proper high society. You can't fake that, and he even tries to override it with his loudness, but it's hard to suppress the lessons you learned as a child." Lily thought about the way Sirius instinctively waited for women to be seated before he sat.

"He'd be so disappointed to know that you caught him," James said, looking admiringly at Lily. She fought her instincts to turn away from him. Instead, she smiled.

"And I suppose you'll tell him?"

"No, no. Where the fun in that?" James asked laughingly. "I'll lord it over him and harass him about it unknowingly."

"Good plan," Lily commented, smiling to know that she and James shared something as intimate as a relationship with a good friend. Sirius was a beginning, a conversation topic, a common friend, someone to laugh with, and someone to drag them both into a dinner they never would have attended. And he would never let them forget it.

"Did you receive any F.A.D. notes today?" Lily asked, changing the subject.

"A few."

"Were some of them from secret admirers?" At James's shocked face, Lily laughed with delight. "I heard some fifth years talking about sending you love notes anonymously."

"Oh." He shrugged and looked briefly angry. Or maybe it was frustrated.

"Aren't you happy about them?" Lily asked. If he wasn't, that was surely very odd.

"It's nice," James commented, looking at Lily with his amber eyes, "but the one note I really wanted never arrived."

"Didn't Tracy send you a note?" Lily asked. She was beginning to think that they were not just broken up, but that they had ended on bad terms.

"Tracy?" James repeated.

"Did you leave us any desert?" Sirius's voice interrupted as he and Gertrude reentered the kitchens.

"No, Sirius," Lily said sarcastically, looking over at him and ending her conversation with James. "James and I finished off all of the desert in the entire kitchen."

Where had Sirius and Gertrude gone, anyway? _I bet they were snogging,_ Lily thought, smiling at the absurdity of the idea that either of them were the type to have a quick snog against a wall or in a broom closet. Both Sirius and Gertrude were the types to have a proper courtship. Yes, a courtship, Lily decided. That stupidly archaic term for dating seemed oddly appropriate for the pair.

"So where were you then? Hanging out in a broom closet?" James asked and Lily laughed as he voiced her private musings. Gertrude did not. She met James' eye until he turned back to the table and muttered, "Right. Stupid comment."

"I thought it was kind of brilliant," Lily commented. Everyone turned to look at her, but she met Gertrude's eyes and went on, "You two disappear for a random, extended amount of time and we're supposed to think, what? That you're having a chat?"

"So I suppose you and James were going at it since you were alone just as long?" Sirius asked, smirking.

"Oh yes," Lily replied, flipping her hair over her shoulder and smiling at Sirius.

"Of course," James added, his timing perfect. "We snogged right against that wall, actually, as soon as you left."

Lily reached across the table to pat James's hand as she said, "No, James, that was after we shagged on the table and rolled around on the food."

"But before we fooled around on the desert cart."

Lily nodded. "Right."

"For health reasons, I'll assume you're joking," Gertrude said, sitting. Sirius' eyes were dancing. Lily took back her hand and smiled at Sirius and Gertrude.

"I thought Snape was your lover," Sirius said to Lily, grinning.

"That's on Tuesdays," Lily explained condescendingly. She looked at James. "Sirius always gets the days mixed up."

"I think he's kind of slow," James confided, almost laughing.

"Dropped on his head as a child, I hear," Lily said with a straight face.

"Multiple times," Gertrude added, taking a sip of her water. Lily gave a shout of laughter. Gertrude had made a joke!

Sirius flicked Lily and said, "I don't like this new funny you."

"I do," Gertrude mentioned, putting her glass down.

"You would," muttered Sirius darkly, picking up a fork and twirling it in his fingers.

It was only then that Lily realized that Sirius and Gertrude had avoided answering her original question about what they had been talking about and said, "You're really not going to tell us what you talked about, are you?"

"Nope," Sirius replied, "but I will let you know that it wasn't--"

"About a Russian satellite," Lily finished. "I know. I know. Let it go."

"Never." Sirius's smirk still irritated her. A lot. She flicked him.

  

 

**~*~*~**

 

Dinner ended shortly after desert and Sirius quickly ran off with a shouted excuse about scones that Lily didn't understand. Gertrude exited shortly thereafter, wishing James a happy birthday one last time. Lily decided that Gertrude was always like that. She never 'left' anywhere. She exited places.

"Think they're trying to give us some hints?" James asked, standing and walking toward the back entrance.

"I think Sirius is," Lily said, standing and catching up with him. "Gertrude always leaves before me."

"You have these dinners with her a lot?" James asked. Lily looked at him out of the corner of her eye, considered him, and wondered if he would tell anyone.

"I don't know if it could be considered 'a lot,'" Lily replied, "but we do have dinner twice a week or so."

"I haven't spoken to her much before," James said, pushing the wall. "She seems a lot like Sirius, only maybe more solemn."

"She's very different than I thought she would be, but that isn't hard since I thought she hated me," Lily replied.

James laughed and said, "It seems as though you live with the assumption that all people will dislike you before they know you."

Lily shook her head and said smilingly as she stepped onto the stairs, "When your sister hates you, it's rather easy to assume that strangers will too."

James looked upset for a moment before turning to address her, "Well, Wrightman doesn't seem to hate you."

"Nor does she hate you," Lily said, "congratulations."

"You have no idea how appropriate those congratulations are," James said. "I don't think she approves of many people."

"She approves of Sirius," Lily said, resting her hand lightly on the railing "though I'm still rather confused about that. You said she and Sirius have been talking since they were eleven?"

"Probably before that," James replied. "They grew up together, but I only met Sirius here at school."

It seemed odd to think of Sirius not having James in his life or vice versa. "I didn't know that."

James nodded. "McGonagall often mutters curses at the Sorting Hat for its decision to put us in the same house."

"But Sirius and Gertrude kept talking despite the fact that she was a Slytherin?" Lily asked. She had had no idea that Sirius and Gertrude even knew one another before that strange night when Christian had come to visit.

"They've been strange acquaintances ever since I've known him," James offered by way of explanation. "Never friends, exactly, but they seem to understand one another."

"Yes, I see that," Lily murmured. They passed under a torch and Lily couldn't help but notice the way that the light made James' hair dance. He caught her looking and smiled. By pure force of will, Lily smiled back softly before turning forward again. She liked Remus. Remus. Who had written her that note and was so brilliant on patrols. She had already liked James. Liked him for two years of her life. Liked everything about him, but she couldn't be that self-destructive anymore. He had made it clear through his previous avoidance that he wanted nothing to do with her. She had to accept that.

"I suppose this is Sirius' way of letting us know that he wants us to be friends," James said, watching her face as they reached the top of the stairs.

"Stupid bugger," Lily muttered. Why was Sirius pushing Lily onto James when he knew that she needed to move on?

"Excuse me?" James asked.

"What?" Lily asked.

"Did you just say 'stupid bugger'?" James inquired. "Implying that you think Sirius is stupid for thinking that we ought to be friends. Like the very idea of being friends with me is appalling."

"Oh frick," Lily said. She stopped walking and turned to face James. "I didn't mean it like that. I'm sorry. That must have sounded so horrible, and I didn't mean it like that. Sirius is just way too involved in my life."

"So you aren't a fan of the friends idea?" James asked. Lily turned and started walking again.

"No. I am," Lily only sort of lied. She just wasn't sure if after such a long time lusting after and obsessing over him, she could settle for being James' friend.

"But?"

"But do you really think we could do it?" Lily finally asked, staring hard at the wall in front of her and willing him to say that he couldn't accept friendship with her. It would certainly let her avoid facing him every day as a friend knowing that he knew she had liked him for years.

"Do what?" James asked. "Be friends?"

"Yes. Do you think we could?"

"Yes. I do." They pushed the portrait open so that they were in the corridor at last.

"I don't want to be hurt," Lily said before she thought the words through. She hated hearing them aloud, but they needed to be said. She needed to be sure that James didn't want to be her friend simply because he wanted the ego boost of knowing he could make her like him again.

"Hurt by what? Friendship?" James asked. "How could you be hurt by friendship?"

"How could I not be?" Lily replied. A hand reached out and grabbed her wrist, both halting her movements and effectively turning her around.

"I know you're still uncomfortable because--"

"This has nothing to do with that," Lily interrupted, trying to ignore how very vulnerable she felt with his hand wrapped around her wrist as they talked about her crush on him.

James shook his head. "This has everything to do with that."

"No. I think we've both moved on." Or at least, she was still trying to believe that she had moved on through her developing crush on Remus. She certainly knew that her crush hadn't bothered him: he dated Tracy knowing about Lily's feelings and tonight proved that he could even forget about her past obsessive long enough to enjoy a nice dinner.

"Moved on?"

"Well, I know you have, and I've decided to forget that it ever happened. That way I can avoid the waves of overwhelming embarrassment," Lily said, trying to lighten the mood by poking fun at herself.

"Embarrassment?" James repeated, letting go of her wrist and running his hand through his hair.

"Oh. Wait. No," Lily said quickly, touching his forearm until he opened his eyes and looked at her. "I didn't mean that you; you're not embarrassing. It's just me. I feel like a fool for not seeing what was right in front of me. It just-- well, it was never you."

"It had nothing to do with-- you know?"

 _With you and Tracy dating secretly for months? With you avoiding me after you found out that I liked you and that I knew you knew? Oh no, this has_ nothing _to do with that._

"No, it was all about me and my blindness. I should have noticed months before and then I could have-well, I could have saved us both a lot of embarrassment if I'd just opened my eyes a bit," Lily said, trying to sound casual and probably failing.

"What could you have done?"

Lily shrugged. "Avoided you. Stopped acting like such an idiot around you. Noticed that Tracy was hanging out with you all the time."

"You knew about her?" James asked. His use of the past tense was intriguing? Were they not dating anymore?

"It was kind of hard to miss," Lily said, smiling, "but I'm happy that both of you seem so happy now, you know?"

The longer they talked about this, the less it hurt. Mind, it was still very, very embarrassing and she would have liked to avoid this conversation, but it wasn't absolutely horrible.

"Tracy isn't very happy with me right now," James said.

Lily was shocked. "She doesn't want you to talk to me?"

James shook his head quickly. "No. She does. She just wanted me to talk to you in a different way."

"That's odd."

James smiled. "Not really. All she really wanted was for you and me and to be friends."

It hurt Lily's heart to nod. Of course Tracy wanted the bloke she'd been dating (were they still?) to be friends with her girlfriends.

"Then you're all right with"--James motioned between them--"this?"

Lily took a step back and nodded. "Yes," she said. "I want to be friends." Well, that was certainly the hardest thing that she had ever said in her life.

"Friends," James repeated, looking strange resolute and disappointed. "Good. That's good."

And it was good, wasn't it? Shouldn't it have been exactly what they both wanted, a friendship? But both went back into their common room that night feeling unsatisfied, trying desperately to convince themselves that they wanted friendship.


	20. Just When Everything Had Been Going So Well

 

"Can you believe how horribly that Ravenclaw messed up his number chart?" James asked jokingly as he and Lily left the Arithmancy classroom.

"Honestly. Mixing up the numbers for Thursday the fifth and Tuesday the tenth?" Lily replied mock-seriously as she readjusted her bag on her shoulder.

James shook his head sadly. "After such a long time bragging about how perfect his chart was, it's just sad."

"Obviously." Lily grinned at him in that crowded corridor. "Good thing we both pointed out the mistake immediately."

"Otherwise he might have gone through the rest of the day with a faulty chart," James said. A girl brushed past him with bright blonde hair.

"We were doing him a favor."

"We're very giving people," James added.

"Selfless, I'd say," Lily said, opening her bag to make sure she had her Potions book and essay. "Imagine him thinking he’d earned his smug little smirk."

"Especially considering that two dates were wrong out of the eighty presented. Shameful, that is," James noted.

"I'd be horrified," Lily agreed. She had all her supplies.

"I'd consider quitting school."

"Consider? No. I'd just leave," Lily corrected, smirking when James caught her eye. That Ravenclaw had been a terrible braggart.

"You two look awfully chirpy," Sirius said as he joined up with Lily and James on their way to Potions.

"And you look a little sickly, but who am I with my paleness to judge you?" Lily asked. It was only then that she realized that Sam hadn't met up with her outside the Arithmancy classroom. That was odd. They always walked together between those two classes.

"What were you two talking about?" Sirius asked, looking pleased with himself.

"Arithmancy in correlation with Activation Charms and flaws in a presentation today," Lily said. Sirius looked bored with just that short explanation.

"You know, even though he mixed the days up, his ideas weren't wrong," James said. "For instance, if someone activated a charm on a Friday the sixteenth at one-eleven in the afternoon--"

"Yeah, I thought about that. Especially if they used a Corelea potion at the same time time?" Lily said. She'd never thought about it before, but the number of ingredients, the dates of the brewing, and the number of stirs could seriously affect a potion. Arithmancy was so fun!

“And if they used a dragon's egg for the potion,” James said, and Lily burst into laughter.

“Stop. People will think we’re trying to start a coup.”

“We’d be so good at a coup.”

”Then we’d have to actually lead and not just theorize. Boring.”

“We’d be brilliant.”

"What'd happen with the dragon's egg?" Sirius asked, looking back and forth between the pair of them.

"It could blow up a small country if you picked the right potion," Lily said.

"Or a large country if you picked the wrong one." James shrugged and smiled at Lily, who smiled back. The corridors had somehow cleared of students, leaving them practically alone as they walked to the dungeons.

"I don't like being left out," Sirius interjected. Lily laughed and looped her arm through his.

"You're only left out because we don't like you," Lily teased, smiling when Sirius yanked his arm away from her.

"I liked you embarrassed and irritated when I teased you about Sputnik," Sirius muttered.

"And you love me being sarcastic and snippy in general," Lily replied.

"Only this much," Sirius said, showing his thumb and forefinger very close together.

"But because we're secret best friends, that really means you like me this much," Lily whispered, holding out her arms as wide as they could go. Sirius took advantage of the situation, picked Lily up and twirled her around as she squirmed to get away.

"See? Can't keep your hands off me," Lily quipped, back on the ground. "Though I desperately wish you would."

"So does his girlfriend," James added. Lily glanced at James, who looked perfectly unhappy, but her attention was on his words.

"You have a girlfriend, Sirius?" Lily grinned. She hadn't known he was dating anyone. Teasing him about his girlfriend would be the perfect revenge for the way he hassled her about her crush on James. "Who's your girlfriend?"

"I don't have one. James is being funny," Sirius said dismissively, patting Lily's shoulder. "Or at least he's trying to be funny, but really he just sounds delusional."

"Do you have an aversion to commitment words like girlfriend?" Lily asked Sirius as they pulled a portrait aside to reveal a secret passage to the Potions room.

"He runs from them like the plague," James answered. The portrait shut behind them and the torches lit themselves.

"The plague was a disease, James. It didn't run," Sirius said condescendingly as he put a hand on Lily's back to indicate that she ought to go down first.

"I meant that you run from commitment words like you would run from the plague," James explained.

"The plague was a disease, James. You can't outrun a disease," Lily said without turning around, mimicking Sirius' tone.

"I hate you people," James muttered. "You always take metaphors too literally."

"We're hurt, aren't we, Lily?" Sirius said, resting an arm across Lily's shoulders.

"I'll weep tonight," Lily replied, taking the final steps a bit faster and moving out of Sirius' reach as she reached the landing that led to the classroom.

"Honestly, James, I don't know what your problem is, hurting us like that," Sirius said, reaching out a hand to the dungeon door.

"Want to talk about your girlfriend, Sirius?" James asked. Oh. Lily wasn't fooled by that casual tone for a moment. That was a threat. How fun!

"Want to talk about yours?" Sirius replied in a similarly threatening tone. What?

"Isn't Tracy dating a seventh year on the Quidditch team?" Lily asked, confused. James looked over at her, his expression mirroring hers.

"Yes," James said slowly.

Lily felt confused. "Then what--"

"James has plans in the work," Sirius whispered in her ear as he pulled on and held the door open for Lily to pass through.

"Thank you," she said, nodding toward the door as she walked through and into the nearly full classroom. A lot of people had done well on their N.E.W.T.s. Just as she spotted Sam at a desk and began moving toward her, Sirius' exclamation caused her to turn around.

"Did you just smack the back of my head?" Sirius asked, looking shocked.

"Be glad I didn't punch it," James answered.

Oh, now Lily felt really badly. Sure, Sirius had mentioned Tracy indirectly, but Lily had been the one to actually mention her name. It was obvious that the broken relationship between the two of them was still a sore spot for James. After seeing James and Sirius begin talking in lower tones, Lily turned back to Sam's desk and put her bag in front of the empty seat.

"Hey there, stranger," Lily said, sitting. "Why didn't you come by Arithmancy?"

"Because the last two times I went, you had other people to talk to already," Sam replied, opening her potions book and riffling through it. "I figured you found a new group to walk with."

"Oh," Lily said, feeling left out. Why hadn't Sam talked to Lily about it? That was their thing, their tradition: walking between classes gossiping. "I'd rather walk with you. You're my best friend. We need bonding time."

Sam smiled slightly and asked, "And that time ought to be the two minute walk from your Arithmancy classroom to the dungeons?"

"Well," Lily said, resting her right elbow on the desk and her chin in her hand, "either then or when we break a lot of school rules."

"I'll come by next Arithmancy class," Sam said, her dark brown eyes locked on Lily's green ones before she turned away.

"Good," Lily said, turning to her bag to drag her essay, parchment for notes, a quill, and her book out of her bag. It was quite the task.

"Hey, Lily," James whispered. Lily turned to see that he and Sirius had taken the desk adjacent to theirs, though across the aisle.

"Yes, James?" Lily replied, leaning toward him and whispering too.

"I bet you a sickle I can answer more questions than you today." A challenge. Interesting.

"Answer them correctly?" Lily clarified. After that bet in Arithmancy when he had shouted out five to six answers for every question and counted all of them, Lily had become interested in the details of his challenges. He smirked and nodded.

"You're on," Lily agreed. James nodded and straightened in his seat.

"What was that all about?" Sam asked, looking so casual that Lily was instantly suspicious.

"Just a fun little wager," Lily replied. Sam smiled at Lily, smiled at James, and then nodded at Sirius. Why were people always nodding at Sirius? That was irritating.

"Obsessing again?" Sam whispered. Lily looked over at her and smiled as she finally understood Sam's forced casualness.

"No," Lily replied, picking up her quill even as she lowered her voice and directly addressed Sam. "I just-- I really like being his friend."

Sam’s brows pinched together, then smothed out as an uncertain smile spread over her face. “I'm glad."

"He's so funny, Sam." Lily couldn’t stop her own smile. "Like today in Arithmancy--"

"Yes?" Sam prompted after Lily cut herself off.

Lily shook her head. "Oh, nothing, he was just funny in general."

"Why'd you cut yourself off?"

"Because I was about to tell a story that was a 'you had to be there' story." Lily hated telling 'you had to be there' stories.

"Thanks for keeping that to yourself," Sam said.

Lily smiled cheekily. "I'm always looking out for you, Sam."

"Good morning, class. How are all of you?" the professor asked as he entered the class.

"Fine, thank you," Lily answered, then glanced at James and surreptitiously held up a single finger. James's eyes widened as he grinned and shook his head. Their wager was on.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

"You and James seem to be getting along well," Sam said, vanishing the remainder of her potion as Lily packed up their ingredients.

"I suppose so," Lily said, putting his sickle in her robe pocket. "Sirius kind of forced it on us."

"But you love being his friend?" And there was the word again: friend. Friend. Not good friend. Not special friend. Just friend.

"It's still a little awkward at moments," Lily said. The two girls were the last ones in the dungeon classroom, as they told Christine to go ahead to lunch without them.

"Why?"

"I don't know," Lily admitted, shrinking her Potions book and shoving it into her bag. "We're fine talking about school and things, but anything more and it's like-- I don't know-- it's as if, though neither of us wants to say it, we won't--" Lily didn't want to talk about this. She just wanted to let her friendship with James be what it was and never have to talk about it.

"Won't what?" Sam asked, lifting her bag onto her shoulder and turning to face Lily. Lily almost lied and begged off answering, but seeing her black-haired friend looking so intently at her with her dark brown eyes, Lily felt she owed her friend an answer.

"It like we won't admit that we're still really uncomfortable around one another," Lily concluded, lifting her own bag and heading out the door with Sam. There was more to it than that, obviously, but it was hard to vocalize. "I don't want to like him again, Sam."

"What do you mean 'again'?" Sam stopped walking and turned to face Lily, who shifted her weight from foot to foot.

"Didn't I tell you? I decided to stop liking James."

Well, fine, you decided. But isn’t I til I’ve all the other times you decided?" Sam repeated quickly, too quickly really. "Where’s you say it but you do still like him?"

"Nope. I stopped in March." Lily wondered why Sam's voice, while sounding calm because Sam could always exude calmness when she wanted, had an undertone of confusion and a little panic.

"March? That was over a month ago," Sam said, her eyes were shifting back and forth across Lily's face.

"Yeah, I guess so. It was right around the time when he and Tracy broke up," Lily said. "I didn't want to be his rebound."

"You didn't want to be his rebound? Was that even an option?" Sam repeated. Lily shrugged, turning and continuing up the stairs, only to have Sam's hand sneak out and grab hers. On instinct, Lily pulled her hand away instantly, then felt bad about avoiding her best friend's touch.

"Listen, this doesn't matter. Sirius and I talked about it and it'd fine. I'm happy," Lily said.

"Talked about what?"

"James and Tracy," Lily replied, "and I just didn't want to keep having James be in the center of my life."

"Sirius knows?" Sam asked. Her eyes unfocused as if she was no longer seeing Lily. "I have to go, Lily. I need to talk to Tracy."

And Lily's black-haired friend raced up the rest of the stairs two at a time. Lily shook her head at her friend's strange behavior and followed at a slower pace. She didn't think she'd ever seen Sam run except during the Game.

  

**~*~*~*~**

 

Lunch came and went, then classes started and ended, and Sam and Tracy were nowhere to be found. So when, at dinner, Lily found herself sitting alone with Christine at the end of the table, it wasn't exactly a surprise. Actually, it was sort of a relief. It meant she and the blonde girl could talk without fear of others listening.

"Remus has been really distant," Lily complained to Christine, who looked over at Remus and his friends at the end of the table.

"Kiss him," Christine suggested, turning back to her food.

"What?" Lily asked, staring incredulously at her friend.

"Kiss him," Christine repeated, munching on her carrots.

"How will that help the situation?"

"Don't worry. It will. Kiss him." Christine ate another carrot and Lily glanced down the table at the four male sixth year Gryffindors. James laughed and playfully shoved Sirius, who was also smiling. Peter threw a pea at the pair of them and Remus smiled his tired smile then glanced worriedly out of one of the windows.

"He hasn't been talking at all during patrols for nearly a month and you want me to counter that by jumping him?" Lily asked, clarifying as she turned back to her friend.

"I said kiss, but jumping him would work too." Christine stood.

"I think you give stupid advice," Lily muttered, pushing the food around her plate as Christine walked over to the Ravenclaw table and sat on Matt's lap.

"Lily?" asked a tiny voice beside her.

"Hello," Lily greeted the young girl whose name she should have known but didn't.

"I'm trying to pick classes for next year," the girl said, sliding over. She was apparently, a second year.

"You want my advice?" Lily asked, positive that the surprise in her voice was apparent. The girl's friends were looking at the pair of them with wide eyes. When Lily smiled at them they went back to looking at their food.

"Yes," the girl said, looking down at her list of classes. Lily couldn't even begin to fathom why anyone would ever want her opinion about classes, but she supposed it had something to do with her prefect rank.

"All right. What's your favorite class?" Lily asked, sliding the list over and scanning it. Were there really so few options?

"Charms."

"Nice one," Lily said, smiling. "That's my favorite too."

The girl blushed and looked down at the paper.

"Do your friends need help?" Lily asked, catching them glancing over again.

"They're scared to ask for it," the girl whispered.

"Why?"

"Because, Lily, you are so fabulous and wonderful and old," Sirius answered as he and his group walked past. Lily rolled her eyes, leaned back and flicked him before he was too far out of reach. He laughed as Lily quickly returned her attention to the girl beside her.

"Are you a Muggle-born?" Lily asked. The girl shook her head, eyes trailing Sirius.

"Then I'd recommend Muggle Studies, which I hear is both easy and interesting," Lily replied, pointing to the class on the list. "Professor Carpenter is supposed to be great."

It took all of five minutes to pick out Rebecca Baker's classes. In all of that time, the second year's friends whispered back and forth between each other without ever once actually addressing Lily, though they pointed a lot. Finally, Lily asked about it again.

"Oh," Rebecca whispered. "They don't know if it's all right to talk with you."

"Of course it’s all right to!" Lily said, trying to think back on her first few years at school and determine whether or not she'd felt comfortable chatting with older students. She supposed she didn't feel comfortable with them, but it was weird to think of herself as an 'older student.' Hadn't those older students always been interesting and cool and smart and self assured? They had a jokingly fun repartee with McGonagall and Flitwick. All Lily had was the professor's annoyance.

"Well, it’s just that you're a sixth year." Okay. Maybe that alone qualified her as older, but she certainly wasn't imposing, was she?

"And?" Lily pressed.

"And you're a prefect."

"And?" Lily really did not understanding why anyone would be intimidated by her.

"And you're Lily Evans."

"Oh, well then," Lily muttered. Shaking her head and deciding the line of conversation was absolutely ridiculous, Lily decided to make sure they had picked the right classes for Rebecca. Lily asked the young girl what she wanted to be when she grew up in order to determine which classes Rebecca had to take and found herself very amused to find the girl's response was 'Head Girl.'

"I meant when you left school," Lily clarified.

Rebecca looked stunned. "Oh. I don't know. That's really far away."

"Not that far," Lily said, smiling. To her, second year felt like yesterday. "But if you want to be Head Girl, I'd recommend talking to Professor McGonagall about what you could do."

"I don't think I could actually be Head Girl," Rebecca said, shaking her head.

"Why not?" Lily asked, surprised.

"Because I'm nothing like you." Okay. Now she was really surprised.

"Me?" Lily repeated. "I'm not Head Girl."

"But you will be," Rebecca said.

Lily smiled and shook her head. "I'm not really cut out for that position."

"You started F.A.D., didn't you?" the girl asked.

"All of the prefects did," Lily replied honestly as she remembered the hours of deliberation over every little detail of that day.

"But they say that it was your idea," Rebecca answered.

"Who says that?"

"Everyone. They say you'll be the next Head Girl." Lily laughed and Rebecca looked confused, then downcast.

"Oh, Rebecca," Lily said quickly. "I wasn't laughing at you. I was laughing at the thought that I could be Head Girl."

The second year became adamant. "But you could. You're nice and smart and good.”

"Oh, well, that's sweet of you to say, but being Head Girl requires a bit more than just being nice," Lily said, deciding not to correct the girl by informing her that she was actually more sarcastic and rude than nice.

"I want you to be Head Girl," Rebecca said. "Everyone likes you, even the Slytherins. Even Sirius Black. I think you'd be a good Head Girl."

"Well, thank you," Lily said, blushing slightly even as she found herself amused by the fact that Rebecca thought Sirius Black and the Slytherins were equally difficult to please.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

It took a while for Lily to get back to her dorm. So long, in fact, that she barely had time to drop her bag off before she turned around and raced out of the common room in order to make it to the Great Hall in time for her patrol.

"Lily, we need to talk!" Tracy called across the common room. Lily wondered where she'd been all day. And where was Sam for that matter?

"I have a patrol. We'll talk after that, okay?" Lily called back, watching Sirius Black run up to Tracy and cut her off from Lily's view. Lily would have left right then if it hadn't been for--

"Get the hell away from me, Sirius Black!" Tracy screeched. "I can't even believe you!"

Sirius picked the beater up and carried her into the boys' dorm door, where Lily saw a brief flash of Peter Pettigrew speaking with Sam. Lily was about to head over there and see what the commotion was about when the clock chimed. She was late for patrol as it was. She was sure that if Tracy or Sam would tell her what they were arguing about later.

And with that comforting thought, Lily left the Gryffindor common room.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

In the dark corridor, Lily couldn't make out the face of the person waiting for her in the Main Hall, though she knew it wasn't Remus. She could only see a tall bloke with a glowing badge. She put her hand on her wand until she began to recognize the figure. Then she smiled.

"Matt?" Lily asked.

The Head Boy inclined his head slightly as he turned to smile at her. "Hello, Lily."

She let go of her wand once she was directly in front of him and asked, "What are you doing here?"

"Your partner begged off this patrol so I decided to fill in for him," Matt said. Lily tried not to feel disappointed by the fact that Remus wouldn't be with her on patrol. Matt was great. He was a good friend with whom she enjoyed spending time and talking, but he wasn't Remus. Or James.

"You don't still think Remus is a werewolf do you?" Lily asked, trying to joke.

"It would be a little difficult as he did manage to patrol on a couple of full moon nights." Matt had the grace to look like he had learned his lesson.

"That _is_ a little difficult to reconcile," Lily teased, warming up to the idea of patrolling with her friend. Sure she didn't have a crush on him, but patrolling with Matt had always been a good time. And Christine might show up unexpectedly.

"I feel bad about even thinking it," Matt admitted, following Lily as she led him down a corridor with his blonde hair shining in the bright moonlight. He really was good looking. He was like a storybook hero; he only needed the horse to complete the image.

"Don't feel bad about it," Lily said, twirling her wand in her hand. "Just admit you were wrong and give me a thousand galleons."

Matt smiled. "And now why would I give you a thousand galleons?"

"You have to have a reason?"

Still smiling, Matt shook his head. “I forgot how much I enjoy patrolling with you.”

"Well, you have all night to remember. Don't feel too overwhelmed by my general fabulousness."

  

**~*~*~*~**

 

Matt was a strategic patroller. Lily had forgotten that, but now she recalled that he was methodical about his hunt for rule breakers. It was as if he had scheduled the entire patrol before going on it. The idea was absurd, of course, that anyone would spend that much time organizing a patrol, but Matt did seem to have a plan of action. He would open a random door on the left of the corridor (he didn't believe in checking every room, randomized hunting worked just as well) and his patrol partner would check a room on the right. He always started at the top of the South East Tower and worked his way down. Lily was quite certain her friend wasn't aware of his habits, but she noticed because of the nights they had played the Game when he was patrolling: he was very easy to avoid.

"So are you a little upset about having to patrol with me tonight?" Matt asked as he returned from checking a door. Lily was briefly confused before she narrowed her eyes and glared at him.

"What do you mean?"

"I was suggesting that there was somewhere— or someone with whom— you'd rather be than on patrol with poor old me," Matt said, casually glancing at the painting on the wall. The women in it giggled and waved. Matt inclined his head toward them.

"Christine told you," Lily said, realizing it only as she said it aloud.

Matt smiled. "She may have mentioned something about you having a crush on--"

A voice interrupted him, saying, "Lily?"

Matt and Lily turned to find Remus running toward them. _Remus?_ Lily thought. _Wasn't Matt covering for him so that he didn't have to be there?_

"I'm having a flashback here, Remus," Lily said to him as he approached. "Did you miss the train again?"

"No," Remus said, reaching them and moving to stand next to Lily and glare at Matt. Geez. Lily knew he had been upset about the werewolf accusation, but she couldn't believe he was still bitter about it.

"What happened?" Lily asked, trying to diffuse the situation.

Instead of answering Lily, Remus told Matt, "You can leave now."

"Remus," Lily hissed. She looked at Matt apologetically and shook her head at him to indicate that she couldn't believe Remus's attitude. He, in turn, looked suspiciously at Remus.

"Do you have a problem, Remus?" Matt asked.

"Leave and my problem will go away," Remus answered. Now that was just uncalled for.

"Remus, why are you being so rude?" Lily asked, looking back and forth between the two and feeling helpless to keep them from saying even stupider things.

"I've already had this out with James Potter, do you want to have a go too?" Matt asked. He looked calm, but the way he was clinching his fist didn't bode well for Remus, who was obviously rather sickly. In a fight, Lily had no doubt that Remus would be destroyed.

"Why didn't you find someone else to take the patrol?" Remus asked. _Well, why would he have?_ Lily wondered.

"You're both wrong about this whole situation," Matt said. His nails looked to be digging into his own flesh. That couldn't be good.

"Wrong?" Remus repeated, spitting the words and taking a step toward Matt.

"Listen, I don't know what you're fighting about but--" Lily tried to interrupt.

"Lily, have you ever wanted to date me?" Matt asked, turning toward her and as a result being unable to see Remus's fist come flying at the side of his head.

" _Stupify_!" Lily shouted just before the fist connected. Remus fell to the ground with a soft 'thunk.' "What the hell was that?"

"How did you cast that spell so quickly?" Matt obviously was not concerned about the important things here. He'd almost been attacked by one of his prefects and all he could talk about was the speed of the spell?

"Matt, what the hell was that about?" Lily pressed, using her wand to point back and forth between Remus and him.

"You should talk to him about that," Matt said, looking down at Remus. "And when he wakes up, let him know that I understand."

"What do you mean you understand?" Lily asked, jabbing her wand in Remus's direction. "The idiot tried to punch you!"

"For the right reasons," Matt replied, shifting his gaze from Remus to Lily. "I'll see you tomorrow, I'm sure."

"Yeah, right, of course," Lily replied, still shaking her head at Remus's strange behavior. She gave Matt a one-armed goodnight hug then turned back to Remus and seriously considered keeping him under the spell just to punish him for idiotically attacking the Head Boy. The effing Head Boy. No, she needed to take this spell off and start yelling at him immediately.

" _Ennervate._ " Remus blinked up at her a couple of times. When she was sure he was fully awake, she asked, "What were you thinking?"

"Where is he?" Remus asked, sitting up and ignoring her question.

"Matt left," Lily replied.

"Good."

"Good?" Lily repeated, watching him stand up. "You nearly attacked the Head Boy and you think that him leaving is good? Who are you kidding? You're insane. You're an idiot. You should apologize."

" _He_ should be the one apologizing," Remus muttered angrily.

"Matt? What did he do except cover your shift? A shift which it is now apparent you could have done yourself.”

"I did have to miss it, but then I found out who your replacement was and I-- I just couldn't let you have to put up with that for four hours," Remus explained.

"Put up with what? Walking with one of my best friends?" Lily didn't understand this at all. But maybe, despite all of their shared patrols, it was just that Lily didn't really understand Remus Lupin. He was acting insane. And bipolar.

"I went through a lot to be here," Remus said, visibly upset. "It took forever just to find the two of you and you still won't admit it."

"Admit what?" Lily asked, reaching out and touching the sleeve of his robe, forcing him to meet her eye.

"Nothing!" Remus snapped, turning down the corridor and walking away. "Let's patrol."

"No," Lily said, running in front of him in order to cut him off. "Admit what?"

"I came because he was on your patrol." Remus didn't say anything else, but he looked at her as if that ought to have been enough information for Lily to put it all together.

"Wait," Lily whispered, thinking fast. Why would Remus have not wanted her to patrol with Matt? Why would he have cared if she and the Head Boy were together? And why would he seem to think it was in Lily's best interest--

"Oh good grief," Lily exhaled, realizing why he had done it and letting her eyes focus on Remus, standing in front of her, still angry, still self-righteous, still trying to defend her. Trying to-- it was just so adorably wrong. "You thought I liked Matt."

Remus nodded and still looked upset by her hounding him with questions. "I knew you liked someone dating your friend."

"And when you saw them kiss in the corridor, you thought it was Matt that hurt me by dating Christine." Lily couldn't believe he would make such big assumptions. Or that he would care so much. "You didn't want me to have to patrol with him because you thought it was too painful for me." _Oh Remus, you silly, conclusions jumping, wonderful, wonderful bloke!_

"Listen, we don't have to talk about this. I know--"

But right then Lily took Christine's advice and cut him off by walking forward and kissing him lightly on the lips.

He looked very, very confused.

She backed away and whispered, "I never liked Matt."

Remus grabbed her by the elbow before she could back away further. "That's good."

"I suppose so," Lily said, smiling and feeling warm inside as she let him pull her closer. Remus had wanted to make her happy.

"Then he closed the distance between them, and Lily almost melted with pleasure when his hand wrapped around her and landed on her lower back, pulling her toward him until they were as close as they'd been behind the suit of armor.

And for one perfect, frantic minute, Lily let herself pretend that this was what she wanted. She parted her lips slightly and nearly forgot how to breathe when he ran his tongue along her lower lip. She sighed and loved this physical moment for three, four, five more perfect seconds. And in that time, Lily was able to forget all of her worries about using Remus to forget James. _Yes,_ she thought, _this is much better than kissing James would be--_

Lily's eyes shot open as guilt slapped her across the face and she took a step back, deeply out of breath.

"No," Lily whispered, blinking back the tears in her eyes. "I can't do this."

"Yes, you can," Remus said, looking amused and eager and excited all at once, taking a step forward and pulling her to him again. And it was just as wonderful this time to kiss him. Just as fun to massage his lips with her own and hear him groan. To feel him pull her so close to him that she was sure his entire body could feel her heart beat. To feel him run his hands down her sides and land on her hips. _If only it were James._  

She pulled away once more, shocked by her own thought.

"No. I won't let you be my rebound," Lily whispered, but Remus shook his head and leaned in so closely that she could feel his lips moving over hers as he spoke.

"I don't _mind_ being your rebound," he said, cupping her right cheek and leaning in to give her a soft, short kiss. Lily pulled back. But frick it was hard. She so desperately wanted to just give in to her hormones, but she wouldn't let herself hurt Remus like that.

"You don't deserve to be my rebound," Lily said, taking his hand into hers and lowering it to her side.

"If I don't have a problem with it, why do you?" Remus asked, playing with her hand.

"Because it shouldn’t be like this."

"Why not?"

"I don't know," Lily said. "Maybe later-- after-- when things aren't as confusing."

"I've done bloody everything to make you want to be with me." He paused. "All right. That sounded a little creepy."

Lily laughed briefly through her tears.

"Why do you hate me?" Remus asked, sighing.

"I don't hate you," Lily breathed, shocked that he could think such a thing. "I don't hate anyone, but especially not you."

"Then stop coming up with excuses," Remus said quietly, squeezing her hand. "You and I could work."

"Despite how much I've come to like you, I'm still hung up on your best friend," Lily said, wiping tears from her eyes with her free hand, "and you don't deserve that."

He looked as if she had struck across the face. He dropped her hand.

In a hollow, angry, and disbelieving voice he said, "Sirius?"

Lily laughed, despite the seriousness of the situation, and shook her head, wishing Remus and their amazing patrols could have been enough for her, wishing Christian's polite and proper manners could have been enough, but knowing that they weren't. No one could make her feel like James did when he was just making her laugh about an Arithmancy problem or coming up with games in Potions class. And for the life of her, Lily couldn't understand why. Remus was the most perfect bloke she'd ever known. He was funny, clever, smart, and quietly understanding, but even when she'd been kissing that perfect bloke, she couldn't help but think of James. What was wrong with her?

"Peter?" Remus choked out. "I didn't even know you two spoke--"

"Not Sirius. Not Peter," Lily said, shaking her head as shame overwhelmed her.

"Then--" He looked so confused. "What?"

"James," Lily said softly, looking down at the ground as her silent tears fell. Oh how she hated herself in that moment. Remus was perfect for her. She had known that since he started talking during the patrols. Why was she so self-destructive?

"What?" He whispered the word.

"I know it's odd. We've only just become friends even, but I've liked him for a long time," Lily said remembering the long history of her embarrassing infatuation.

"You couldn’t have. You didn’t. You hated him.”

Lily felt she owed him the truth, no matter how painful. "No. I liked him since before he started dating Tracy."

"Dating Tracy?" Remus took a step back, obviously confused.

"I'm sorry," Lily said. "I don't know why I liked him or why he never told you about Tracy. I thought you'd put it together months ago."

Remus looked like he was trying very hard to ignore a headache. "Put what together?"

"I never liked Matt," Lily said, lowering her gaze to the ground. "It was James. It was always James. Since bloody fifth year it's been James."

"You have to be joking," Remus said. "Are you joking?"

Lily shook her head and tried to explain, "Remus--"

"Oh bugger me," he muttered, backing quickly away from Lily. " I-- I didn't have to do any of this-- but I thought--"

"Get away from her!" Tracy's voice reverberated around the corridor, and Lily distantly wondered whether Filch would be coming soon.

"Tracy?" Lily asked. Remus was looking at Tracy running up and shaking his head.

"I'm going to kill you," Tracy said, shoving Remus backward until he hit the wall. Lily grabbed Tracy by the arm to stop her from hitting Remus and positioned herself between them.

"What do you think you're doing?" Lily asked angrily.

"Lily, get away from him." Tracy's dull blue eyes burned but never focused on Lily. Instead they stared behind her at the boy Lily could not see.

"What's going on?" Lily asked, trying to calm Tracy down.

"Did you think I wouldn't find out?" Tracy asked, jumping up and glaring at Remus over Lily's shoulder.

Tracy grabbed Lily's hand and pulled her out of the space between them and advanced on Remus. Lily tried to hold her back, but the beater was stronger than she appeared. She stood toe-to-toe with Remus despite their vast height differences.

"Did you think I was an idiot?" Tracy hissed, shoving his shoulders again.

"Wait, please-- Tracy-- stop," Remus tried to interrupt, but Tracy was having none of it.

"Stop? Don't you dare!" Tracy exclaimed. "After what you pulled, don't you dare try to tell me to do anything!"

"Tracy--" Remus tried.

"I just ran into Matt--"

"She just told me--"

"Who told me you showed up on patrol!" Tracy screamed. "And just today Sam put it together, and Sirius and Peter tried to convince us to just let you go--"

"Just give me an hour--" Remus said, desperation in his face.

"You don’t deserve it!" Tracy yelled.

"What's going on?" Lily asked, tired and worried. There was no reason to shove another person. Ever. Tracy ought to know that.

"Is that it?" Tracy hissed, yanking his apple juice pouch off his shoulder and waving it around like it was her beater's bat. "What's the matter? Is your hour over?"

"Tracy, she liked me. She thought you and I were dating," Remus said, giving up trying to get the satchel back and just pleading with Tracy. "She--"

"I know!" Tracy shot back. Remus looked a cross between heartbroken and angry, betrayed and irate. He looked like, had he been a lesser bloke, he might have cursed Tracy.

"You knew?" he asked, horrified and angry.

"Don't you dare!" Tracy yelled, still too angry herself to see that provoking him was a bad idea. "Don't you dare try to turn this against me."

"You knew I liked her!" Remus yelled, gesturing at Tracy. "You knew I was doing everything I could--"

"No!" Tracy threw the satchel against the opposite wall, where it exploded like a murky water balloon. "No. I didn't know you were doing this. You stole. You lied. You betrayed everyone's trust. You betrayed me. I didn't know that."

"But you knew-- you knew she"--He pointed at Lily--"liked me!" He paused and turned to look at Lily, all anger draining away to leave but a shell of the boy she had known so well. "You liked me?"

"I did. I do. I'm so confused right now," Lily managed to say. What was happening? She couldn't follow their conversation.

"Of course you're confused!" Tracy snapped. "He's done nothing but confuse you!"

"Two years, Tracy!" Remus screamed. "Two years!"

"So what? You think that justifies anything?" she yelled. "You were selfish and hateful."

"What the hell is going on?" Lily asked, taking three steps backward.

"Lily--" Remus began, reaching out to her.

"No," Lily said, pointing to the spot on the wall where Remus's 'apple juice' was staining and eating away at the stones in the wall. "I want to know what the hell is going on right now."

"It's James!" Tracy screeched, pointing at a thoroughly guilt-ridden, confused, and upset Remus.

"He took a potion -- the Polyjuice potion -- to make himself look like Remus," Tracy said, taking deep breaths and staring at Lily. "He stole from a seventh year project, pretended to be Remus, and went on patrol with you."

"What?" Lily asked, for lack of anything to actually say. What? What was going on? Lily took a few more steps backwards, unable to process this situation.

"Please, hear me out," Remus said. Only it wasn't Remus. Remus was melting, changing and fading even as the apple juice mark on the wall grew larger.

She waited and watched as Remus Lupin's face faded and James Potter's face emerged. It was a disgusting process during which his nose grew far too big then shrunk into his head before popping out correctly, his mouth reshaped itself, he grew two inches, his eyes changed to amber, and Lily's heart broke seven different ways.

Lily mind was too full of horror and shame and embarrassment to process anything. This had to be a joke. A prank. This had to be-- to be-- something that it wasn't. Oh frick.

"Lily," James -- Remus? -- said as he took one of her hands in his. And that did it. That was enough to pull her out of the haze of overwhelming emotions and kick-start her.

"Are you freaking kidding me?" Lily screamed, yanking her hand away from him.

"Wait--" he said, taking a step forward.

"Are you kidding me?" Lily repeated. "Was this your idea of a joke-- I can't even breathe. I can't even-- are you kidding me?"

"Are you all right?" He took a step toward her, and she took four back.

"Get away from me! Get away!" Lily screeched. Looking at Tracy and James, standing side by side, standing together, Lily couldn't even muster the energy to jump to conclusions. She couldn't do anything. Anything except the one thing she desperately needed to do: scream.

"Lily, I came as soon as--" Tracy began. But Lily didn't care how soon Tracy had come. Didn't care that she'd come at all.

"You," Lily said, pointing at James. "You just stood there pretending! I kissed you! What's Remus going to think?"

"Remus?" James asked, confused.

"No, Lily, you don't understand," Tracy said as she glared at James-- James in too short robes and James without glasses, James with Remus's prefect badge. "James has been pretending to be Remus for months. We never dated. He liked you. He only stopped pretending last month. Before that--"

"What?" Lily nearly fell to her knees. She needed to reach out a hand and put it against the wall in order to keep her balance.

"He's been taking it for months, pretending to be Remus. It was always--"

"Tracy, shut up!" James yelled.

" _Reducto_!" Lily hollered, pointing her wand at the suit of armor in the far corner of the hall. The different pieces of it exploded around the corridor, rattling against the walls, and the breastplate that Lily actually hit with the curse unexpectedly melted.

"Bloody hell," Tracy muttered from her crouching position, arms covering her head.

"If Filch didn't hear our yelling," Lily said into the steely silence, "I'm sure he'll have noticed that. I suggest you leave if you don't want a dozen detentions."

"He wouldn't--"

"I would," Lily replied, turning away from the pair of them and walking toward the melted metal.

"Lily--" James tried to say.

"Leave me alone," she said, cold fury hardening her words, pushing the pair of sixth years away.

And luckily, they both left.

  

**~*~*~*~**

 

Unfortunately, not everyone understood that Lily was in no mood to talk, to think, to walk, to cry, or do anything except destroy something.

"Lily?" The voice came on the third floor, after Lily had been walking for quite a while. She turned to see Will McGrath stepping out from behind a sliding secret passage entrance.

"You're supposed to avoid prefects when you're sneaking out," Lily said as she walked past him.

"But it's only you," Will said, shrugging as he raced to keep up with her. 'It's only you.' He just took it for granted that she was the person she looked like she was. He didn't even begin to imagine that someone had taken an effing potion in order to pretend to look like Lily. Idiot.

"If I ask Chad to come out, will you promise to only take points off me?" Will asked. Lily stopped walking and looked at the first year who was smiling so brightly at her.

"I'm not taking points off anyone tonight," Lily said in clipped tones, so angry she didn't really care about her prefect duties or house standing or the idiotic point system imposed to make students behave themselves in order to avoid the wrath of their housemates.

"Anyone?" Will repeated

"Anyone under sixth year," Lily hedged, because if she saw James Potter or Tracy McGrath right then, she might have taken a thousand points off them both and then cursed them to within an inch of their lives.

"Promise?" The little blonde-haired boy looked skeptical. Good.

"Yes," Lily replied.

"Okay," Will said, turning around he called out in a stage whisper, "Chad, you can come out."

And when the boy stepped out of the shadows near Lily, she wondered how she couldn't have noticed him there.

But then again, she was just blind, wasn't she? Remus hadn't talked the same, hadn't walked the same, hadn't even laughed at their common jokes outside of patrol! How had Lily been so stupid? How could she not have effing suspected that something was wrong?

" _Reducto_!" Lily cursed, aiming for the far wall. The corner of it was blasted apart. Using that curse in front of Tracy and James had been the first time Lily'd cast a curse since getting her new wand - technically the spells during the game were charms - and she had to admit that it felt good. It felt amazing.

"Cool," Will breathed, turning to stare at the rubble as the three of them walked past. He loved messes.

"Are you just going to leave that?" Chad, apparently, was not such a fan of messes. Actually, Lily knew that about him. She'd known him since he was six and organizing his blocks by color and size in the Caldwell playroom. If, of course, he really was Chad Caldwell. Bloody Polyjuice Potion. Bloody James Potter. Bloody magic.

Lily looked at the crumbling wall and wondered if she really wanted to clean it up. It had felt so good to destroy, destroy a wall the way Lily desperately wanted to destroy James's face with her first.

" _Reparo_ ," Lily muttered, turning and continuing to walk before it had rebuilt itself completely.

"Are you angry, Lily?" Will asked.

"Yes," she replied, eyes flicking down to these two eleven year olds. Were they lying and tricking her too?

"Are you angry at a professor?" he asked.

"No," Lily replied. And hadn't James laughed in class when she mentioned flogging Will? Wasn't that a giveaway? How stupid was she?

"Are you angry at me?" Will asked.

Lily looked at Will and said, "No."

"Are you angry at Chad?"

"No." Lily smiled, then stopped. And hadn't 'Remus' always asked about James and how she felt about him and-- frick-- she couldn't remember all of their conversations. Her anger was too consuming and her mind was buzzing with information, too much for her to process everything.

"Are you angry at Tracy?" Will sounded hopeful, but when Lily thought about it, she realized that she really was angry with Tracy. Tracy had been the one that showed Lily what a fool she'd been and Lily was irrationally irritated and angry about that. But her younger brother didn't need to know that.

"No," she lied.

"Are you mad at Sam?"

"No." Was Sam involved? How had everything gotten so out of control so quickly?

"Are you mad at Matt?"

"No." An hour ago, she'd been kissing the perfect guy. The perfect guy. Right. Frick! It had been sodding James Potter; she felt ill.

"Are you mad at--" Will faltered. "I don't know anyone else."

"Are you mad at James?" Chad asked.

"No," Lily spat, but she turned her wand against the wall and said, " _Reducto!_ "

And that curse felt so good. It was like sipping a glass of her grandmother's best wine. It felt like hot chocolate in the winter and walking into a cinema in the summer. It felt right. Watching it collide with and blow a hole in that wall felt brilliant. The wall exploded in every direction, ricocheting off a couple of different walls and giving a few hollow thuds.

"Are you angry at the wall?" Will asked, wide eyed at this display of large-scale destruction.

"Yes," Lily said vehemently. "I hate this wall." _This wall that watched me patrol with James, thinking it was Remus. This wall that watched me kiss him. That watched me laugh and fall for him again. Oh, yes, Will. I hate this wall._

"You should stop cursing it," Chad said, looking up at Lily with that serious expression of his. "What if someone had been next to it and you hadn't seen them?"

And that was a valid point. A very valid freaking point. A valid point that made Lily feel ill. She could have hurt someone with her stupidity. Frick. Frick! Frick! How had everything gone so wrong?

This was all James' fault.

" _Reparo_ ," snapped Lily, hating that casting a charm did nothing to appease her anger. Casting a charm just felt normal, like this was all okay. But nothing was okay. Nothing.

She wanted to curse that wall again. Wanted to cruse it so badly that her wand almost itched to curse on it's own, without the incantation.

"What'd the wall do to you?" Will asked, grabbing a piece of rubble only to have it yanked out of his hand as it flew to put itself back into the wall as a result of her repairing charm.

"Nothing. It just stood there and watched me make an idiot out of myself," Lily said, turning abruptly down a set of stairs. The boys followed.

"Tracy says I always make an idiot out of myself, but I don't blow up walls for watching me," Will countered.

"Yeah, well, I have issues," Lily said. She really didn't want to talk right now. She wanted to blow up walls and leaving them destroyed. She wanted to pretend like no one cared about her and mope in self-pity.

"Issues? What does that mean?" Will asked.

"That means I just want to crawl into a hole and cry for days."

"Don't cry," Will warned. Lily almost wanted to smile at the idea of him hating it when people cried. He was such a boy, such an eleven-year-old boy.

"Why do you want to cry?" Chad asked, ever curious.

"I'm just being an idiot," Lily said. She wanted to throw up. How was it so easy to go back and forth between being sick and being angry and being so frustrated that she wanted to cry or blow something up?

"I don't think you're an idiot," Will said.

"Well, thanks," Lily said, blinking to hold back her tears.

"But you still owe me a F.A.D. note!" Will exclaimed. Chad stopped walking and Will did too. Lily turned to look at them questioningly. Both boys smiled and looked over at a statue. Right, the Ravenclaw entrance. Lily hadn't noticed. Had they even been walking in that direction?

"Night, Lily," Chad said, smiling a small smile and walking up to the statue. Will turned to look at her with his big blue eyes.

"You're really not mad at me?" he asked. She shook her head. "Okay because I didn't want you to be mad at me before and now I don't want you to be mad at me because I don't want to be blown up or exploded. Okay?"

"Okay," Lily said, smiling, fighting back tears, and hating herself for it. In an impulsive move, she pulled Will into a hug. He barely came up to her chest and he was so tiny, like a doll. She held him for a short time, but he quickly stepped away.

"Ew," he said, pretending to wipe his arms. "I don't hug girls."

"Even me?" Lily asked, smiling, loving his reaction, loving Will McGrath for being so perfectly eleven.

"Well, I suppose you're not really a girl," Will said.

Lily smiled. "Oh. Thanks."

He wrapped his thin arms around her briefly, turned and then ran into his common room, but before the statue shut, he turned and yelled, "Hey! You owe me two notes!"

She owed him a thousand notes. A thousand and one.

Lily looked around the corridor. Where was she supposed to go? Her only goal had been to avoid running into her friends, which involved avoiding the Gryffindor common room. The idea of going back there still made her feel sick. It would take too much energy to face Sam and Tracy and all those people -- people trying to explain their actions, people making excuses, people who would try to make her stop feeling so hurt by this whole thing. All Lily wanted was to sit in a room alone and cry for a bit, away from the prying eyes of people with whom she did not want to share her private pain. All she wanted was some time to understand how this could have happened, why it had happened.

Her feet started moving before she could think of a destination.

It had been good to run into Will and Chad. Good to see that all of the castle wasn't affected by her private hurt, good to be told that blowing up walls was useless.

Trying not to think of anything as she walked, Lily felt only a vague sense of surprise when she found herself standing in front of the wall that led to the Slytherin common room. She did want to talk to Gertrude. Gertrude would understand. But how could she talk to her if she couldn't even open the Slytherin entrance?

Lily slid down the wall opposite the entrance and felt stupid. So stupid. But as long as she was already feeling stupid, Lily figured she might as well try her best to open the wall. She started guessing passwords.

"Nitwit. Oddball. Crustacean. Pureblood," she began. "Slytherin. Salazar. Mudblood. Hate. Voldemort. Death Eater. Oops. That was a little prejudiced. Just open up, you stupid wall. Open! Open sesame."

A few minutes passed, Lily staring at the floor, unwilling to move.

"Abraca-effing-dabra," she muttered.

"I really don't think that's their password," Sirius Black said, walking up.

Lily scrambled to stand up and face Sirius Black. Holding her wand out in front of her, she said, "If you come any closer to me, Sirius Black, I swear--"

"I thought you might come here," Sirius said, ignoring her threat. "For Gertrude."

"Don't think-- Don't presume-- You don't know me!" Lily said through clenched teeth.

"Who's being cryptic now?" Sirius asked. Was he joking? Teasing Lily?

"Do you have any idea what I've been through tonight?" Lily hissed at him, holding her wand in a dueling position and realizing for probably the first time the damage she could inflict with it. Sirius's eyes locked on hers.

"James came back. He said Tracy found out about the plan."

"The plan? The bloody plan? You knew?" Lily asked, wanting to cry or scream or blow up another wall. She supposed, in the back of her mind, that it made sense: anything James did, he did with Sirius. But that didn't keep her from feeling like Sirius had punched her in the gut.

"Lily, James was trying to--" Sirius said.

"To what?" Lily asked, cutting him off. "Lie and hurt and cheat me? Good job, then."

"Don't be stupid," Sirius said. "He was doing it for his friend. That's the only reason James does anything stupid."

"Right," Lily said sarcastically. Realization dawned on her. "Oh no. That conversation I overheard-- you were talking about me-- and Remus said it was wrong-- oh frick. I--" _I hurt so much._

"Lily, he did it for you."

"No!" Lily screamed. Screamed. She just started screaming to let out her frustration. Screaming and screaming without stop until she was so drained of energy that she wanted to fall to the ground and give up. She was so angry and frustrated and hurt. She couldn't even muster the energy to want to blast a hole in the wall.

She saw Sirius standing a couple of meters away and walked toward him with the intention to hit him, yell at him, curse him. But instead, Lily found herself standing before him, staring at his silver eyes, drained and empty. She wanted to ask him how could he have done this to her? How could James? How could--

But Sirius's arms were around her suddenly, and she was crying, sobbing. Trying to breathe as her tears fell onto his robes. And she was hugging him back, clinging to him. She was sure, had he chosen to let go of her, she would have fallen.

"Why?" she asked through her sobs, taking a deep breath, unable to regulate her crying as she turned her head to rest it on his shoulder. "Why did he do this?"

"Lily--" But even Sirius didn't have the words. His arms tightened around her, supporting her as she cried as if Sirius was her best friend. She cried as if it could make this better somehow. She cried until she could cry no more and she could only focus on her breathing. Then Sirius took a step back and put his hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look him in the eye.

"He didn't mean to hurt you," Sirius whispered.

"And that's supposed to make it better?" Lily asked, backing away from Sirius and wiping her eyes.

"Think of this from his point of view," Sirius said. "He's been after you for two years and you just kept rejecting him."

"He has not been after me!" Lily protested. She started to say something about Tracy and him, but then she remembered Tracy saying that they had never dated, that James was interested in Lily. She shook her head.

"He wanted you, and you didn't give him a chance."

"I gave him a chance!"

"You shut him down at every opportunity. I know. I was there," Sirius snapped. He waved his hand in the general direction of their dorm. "Even now he's up in our dorm, devastated, hating himself because of you."

"This is not my fault!" Lily countered. "This is not my fault."

"I'm not blaming you."

"It sure as hell sounds like you are," Lily replied. "If anything, this happened because of you."

"Me?" Sirius looked highly offended, but also guilty. Oh yes he looked guilty.

"You knew it all," Lily said, taking a step toward him. "I told you I liked him months ago. I told you and all you did was tease me. Why didn't you just tell him? Or why didn't you tell me how he felt, if he really did like me?"

"And how would you have reacted, Lily?" Sirius asked condescendingly. "You think you would have given a shout of joy and run to him? Don't be delusional."

"How dare you," Lily said, wiping the rest of her drying tears away and giving into anger. "Don't you dare claim to know me."

"Oh, I know you, Lily. I don't understand you, but I know you," said Sirius, staring at her with his intense silver eyes. "You unnecessarily complicate everything. You didn't say yes to James when he asked you out a million times last year even though you liked him. You somehow befriended Gertrude Wrightman and hid that friendship. You turned down a Wizard's Debt from one of the most influential people in the world for no apparent reason. Hell, you cast a shield against Death Eaters even though you knew it would be torn apart. You're remarkable, but also kind of crazy. And you think, what? That if I told you James was obsessed with you, you'd have run into his freaking outstretched arms?"

Lily stiffened at his words. "And how do you know I wouldn't have?"

"Because you'd never let anything be that easy, especially anything that has to do with James," Sirius replied quietly, taking a step forward and grabbing Lily's arm before she could back away. "You have this ridiculous standard that applies to just him, and he never measured up. You forgive everyone every grievance, but hold it against him that he was arrogant in Astronomy class one time in fourth year!"

"Pretending to be Remus wasn't a solution!"

"No, but how was he supposed to know that?" Sirius said. "He knew nothing about you. He thought he did. We all did. I thought you were just a rule-abiding prefect, determined to excel at school before all else. I thought you were-- it doesn't matter. You aren't."

"I'm not what? Naive, gullible, easy to lie to?" Lily snapped. "Oh. Wait. That's right. I am. I am all of those things. Apparently I'm a freaking idiot!"

"He didn't do this to hurt you," Sirius said.

"Oh go take some Polyjuice Potion," Lily said scathingly. "Maybe I'll believe you if you look like someone else."

Sirius continued as if she hadn't interrupted, "It started because we overheard Matt asking too many questions about Remus and we noticed the schedule of patrols. We did this to protect Remus. It had nothing to do with you."

"Then why did he keep it up?" Lily asked, unwillingly feeling impressed that James would work so hard to protect Remus.

"He kept it up for you!" Sirius exclaimed, releasing her arm and throwing his hands up in frustration. "You. He's been following you around like a lost puppy for years, and he saw this as his one chance to get to know you, to finally have you talk to him like a human."

"Why?" 

"Because he thought you knew he liked you, and you made it very clear to him that you wanted nothing to do with him," Sirius replied. "He came back from those stupid Wednesday night things upset one night, saying it was over, that you knew how much he had done to be close to you and still hated him. He was going to throw in the towel."

Lily shook her head, disbelieving. "But he knew I liked him. He figured it out--"

"No." Sirius shook his head and looked at her as if he wanted to throw her across the corridor, he was so frustrated. "No, he didn't."

"He liked me?" Lily repeated, feeling just as frustrated as Sirius looked. And doubly confused and disbelieving.

"Yes," Sirius said with conviction.

"I don't believe you," Lily said quickly. "This was just another prank."

"Effing hell, Lily!" Sirius exclaimed, reaching his hands out as if to strangle her. Lily stood her ground and glared at him. "He was practically in love with you and all you could do was yell at him because you thought he was teasing you! Stop assuming things and just listen to someone for a change!"

"If he liked me, why would he ever do this?" Lily asked, blinking back more tears.

"To be with you," Sirius said plaintively. "The stupid bastard was desperate. He thought this was his only chance--"

"And you thought this was all so hilarious!" Lily snapped. "You looked at me and told me what fun this would all be."

"And it was!" Sirius threw his hands into the air and spun around as he said, "Watching you two dance around each other was the craziest thing I've ever seen, but now it has to end." He faced her again. "You and James-- you're-- Just go up there and talk to him."

"No!"

"No?"

"No." Lily shook her head with more conviction and met Sirius's stare. "He lied to me. He broke my trust and confidence and--"

"Quit looking for excuses, Lily!" Sirius cut her off. "Stop it. You and James make sense. Just date him."

"Date him?" Lily exclaimed. "You must be joking."

"Why? You were falling for Remus and still thinking about James. You told me that a month ago. Well, that's perfect. They're the same person!"

"And that's supposed to make me happy?" Lily yelled as shame threatened to overwhelm her in that stone corridor under the castle. "I've been bloody stalking Remus in classes, sitting next to him as Quidditch games, send him a F.A.D. note, forcing him to-- I'm so embarrassed I can barely stand it. I forced him to talk to me, sit by me, hang out. James made a fool out of me."

"He made a fool out of himself." The pair turned sharply to see Gertrude Wrightman standing in the Slytherin doorway, the wall closing behind her. She turned to address Sirius, "I only just finished your owl."

"You owled her?" Lily asked Sirius, surprised.

Sirius watched her with his concerned grey eyes. "I knew you'd come down here to talk to her."

Lily didn't even want to think about what it meant that Sirius knew her that well.

"James made himself look like a fool, Lily, not you," Gertrude said again. Lily looked at her and then stared up at the stone ceiling in the dark corridor.

"Then why do I feel like such a"--Lily swallowed back more tears, though she had thought she had cried them all out. "Why do I feel like such an idiot?"

"Sirius," Gertrude said. Lily looked over to see him nod at Gertrude, shoot a worried look at Lily and begin to walk away. He stopped short of leaving, turned and faced Lily.

"I'm not sorry for what I did," Sirius said, surprising Lily. "I'm sorry you were hurt, but I'm not sorry for anything else."

"Is there anything else?" Lily asked.

"He's the closest thing I have to family right now, and you two-- you'd work together."

"Sirius," Gertrude cut him off. He looked at her for a long moment. It occurred to Lily then that he was dressed for class despite the late hour.

"He--" Sirius began.

"I know," Gertrude said, nodding at him. Sirius blinked a couple of times, nodded back, slow and sad, then turned and really left. Lily watched him go with a mixture of anger and a deep sadness. She watched her friend's back until he disappeared into the darkness. She stood staring at the end of the corridor for a long time after that. Gertrude waited beside her.

James had liked her?

Lily shook her head. It was so hard to believe.

"Gertrude," Lily began, unable to find the words for her shame.

"Yes, Lily?"

"What do you know," Lily began, her voice strengthened with the assurance of Gertrude's care, "about the Polyjuice potion?"

"Enough."

Lily nodded and finally looked over at her tiny, blonde friend. "Tell me everything."

Together in the dungeons of a thousand year old castle, Lily Evans and Gertrude Wrightman sat in an old classroom and talked of potions and lies, patrols and deceptions. They talked about gullibility and the price of magic. They talked until Lily had blown a few more holes in a few more walls and tears had run out of her eyes. They talked until Lily was too drained to feel anything but a sad sort of longing for the ability to change what James had done, to be able to know the truth earlier. But in the end, what they really talked about was two broken halves of a heart that all the king's horses and all the king's men seemed perfectly willing to put together again.

**~*~*~*~**

It was late. So late that Lily's eyes were drooping, but she didn't care. She and Gertrude had been talking for hours, and now, faced with Gertrude's question about what had appealed to her about Remus, Lily spent a good deal of time running through the lists of things she had enjoyed about their patrols.

"He understands," Lily said at last, looking down at her hands that rested on her knees. "Every patrol-- at least once every patrol-- I remember looking at him and feeling like I could tell him anything. I felt like he would understand about my fights with my sister and the pain of the Ball. He even understood that I felt angry about the whole thing before _I_ knew I felt that way. But now I wonder if it wasn't all part of an act, I doubt myself too."

"He might have been acting," Gertrude allowed, shifting on the table she was sitting on, "but I doubt it. One of the most remarkable things I've seen in James Potter is his ability to empathize with situations he is has never known personally."

"Can he?" Lily asked, hoping the answer was yes. "Can anyone really understand what it feels like to have a sister when they don't have one? To be cursed by Death Eaters when they're the best dueler in school?"

"Yes, James Potter can, and he's gone a step further," Gertrude said. "He accepted Sirius despite his dark family and bad reputation. He befriended Peter though he wasn't as strong as the others. He looked at you and saw what you went through and knew it wasn't something you wanted to talk about. I'm sure he never brought it up."

"No, no he didn't," Lily said.

"So no, he hasn't been through what you have, Lily. He hasn't faced prejudice like you, or grown up in a dark home like Sirius, or been the bottom of the class like Peter, but he manages to see past all of that baggage and accept the person. A bit like you, actually." Gertrude's eyes softened and Lily would have protested, but her friend kept talking. "The fact that he understands situation with which he has no experience makes him all the more impressive."

"Does it?"

"James has never faced a truly horrible situation and yet he empathizes with everyone: took Sirius into his home, took Peter into his circle of friends, and fell for you despite the negative attitude toward Muggles right now."

"He didn't fall for me. He tricked me. He lied to me," Lily said.

"I doubt that very much," Gertrude replied, sliding off her desk and into a standing position.

"How could he hurt me this much if he cared about me at all? If he empathized?" Lily asked, playing with and tearing the seams of her robes, only to mend them a moment later.

"He didn't think he was hurting you," Gertrude replied, tilting her head to the right as she considered Lily. "Sirius told me James had no idea about your feelings. He was a victim too."

Lily felt uncomfortable. "I didn't lie to him."

"Yes you did, Lily," Gertrude said. "You told him you would never date him. Your actions told him you hated him. You're at fault too."

"He was malicious," protested Lily.

"Not intentionally."

"He was--"

"He was in the wrong. He shouldn't have done what he did. No one doubts that, but it isn't beyond forgiveness, is it?" Gertrude asked, straightening.

And though Lily did not want to and was not exactly ready to admit it, she realized that she did think this was a forgivable action. She hated herself for being so weak.

"Now you know how he feels. You know how you feel," Gertrude said, watching Lily slide off her own desk and take a deep breath. "What are you going to do about it?"

"What do you mean?" Lily asked, shooting her friend a sharp look.

"Do you plan to continue crying and screaming and cursing things, or do you plan to become angry and productive?" Gertrude clarified, moving toward the door and resting a single hand on the handle. Lily involuntarily remembered Remus's-no, James' words -- about anger. _Angry means you don't think you deserved it. Angry means you think something ought to be different._ Well, she certainly thought something ought to have been different about this situation.

But Lily didn't know that she had the energy to stop being sad just yet and said, "I don't--"

"Do you still want to be with him?" Gertrude asked. And Lily was momentarily stunned. Did she? Did she want him? Could she?

"Yes," Lily whispered, "I still want to be with him. That's why this hurt so much."

Oh that was shameful to admit, shameful to say aloud and hear aloud. Her self-hatred doubled. He had deceived her, lied to her, tricked her, and hurt her. Yet, despite all that, James's actions flattered her. How was it possible to like someone so much that she could forgive him so quickly for something this horrible and invasive and blatantly disrespectful?

"Are you sure?" Gertrude asked.

"Yes," Lily replied in a louder voice, "but that doesn't mean I'll let him back into my life."

"Good," Gertrude said, pulling open the door and inclining her head to show that she approved Lily's conclusions. "Make him prove that he deserves to be beside you."

Lily paused. "What?"

Gertrude walked through the door. "Make him prove it. Challenge him. Show him that you won't be cowed, that you won't cower."

"I kind of want to cower," Lily said, only half joking.

"No you don't," Gertrude said with such confidence that Lily almost believed her before realizing that they were talking about how Lily felt. Surely she knew how she felt more than Gertrude did.

"I do," Lily claimed, momentarily confused.

"Lily, look at me." She did. That was a mistake. Gertrude looked very disapproving. "Do not let yourself hide from this."

"I'd be a bit thick if I didn't, wouldn't I?" Lily joked.

"No," Gertrude said. "Make him deserve it. Stop crying and stopping blowing things up and start using that anger. Make him deserve your forgiveness."

For years now Lily had gone through the day believing that she did not deserve James. Oh, she never put it that way exactly, but her feelings boiled down to the same conclusion: Lily did not feel that she belonged with James. But looking back on this year, Lily realized the amount of effort he had put into this task, realized that he was the reason she had enjoyed her patrols, their conversations, and shared jokes.

She wanted to hate him for what he had done, how much he had hurt her, but first she would take Gertrude's advice and make him earn her forgiveness.

Sure, all she really wanted to do was cry some more and blow up a couple more walls, but she would not let herself. She had cried her last tears in this dungeon, she had blown up her last wall with Chad and Will. Now she just wanted to hide her sadness and hurt. She wanted to show James that she was angry, to let him know that something should have been different.

That night Lily returned to her dorm alone, having found and excused three other people who were out of bounds, but she did not answer Sam or Tracy's worried questions. They would be dealt with later. Always later. And in the course of the one-sided conversation, Lily quickly learned that they had known how James felt about her. And they'd known how Lily felt and they hadn't said anything.

They'd known that Lily thought Tracy and James were dating and they had said nothing. They had been planning, with Sirius, for Lily and James to get together. And they were sorry.

Sorry.

Of course.

But she said she understood, that she was hurt, that they would talk about this later, and went to bed. Christine slept through the entire conversation.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

The next day found no traces of the crying, devastated, and shocked Lily Evans of the night before. Instead, Lily looked angry and confident. She looked scary, to tell the truth. But neither Remus nor James had made an appearance yet that day, and that just made her angrier.

Lily walked up to Sirius at lunch, briefly relieved that Remus still hadn't shown up to the meal, and curtly asked, "Where's James?"

"He's still in the dorm," Peter answered for Sirius.

"You better tell him that if he doesn't get his arse down here in time for Transfiguration, that I'm going to take fifty points from Gryffindor," Lily told them.

"What? Why?" Sirius asked, shocked.

"Because he has no right to hide. No right. If anyone should be hiding it's me," Lily answered, swallowing the lump in her throat as she refused to let herself tear up again in front of Sirius.

"But you aren't hiding," Sirius observed.

"No," Lily said, steel in her voice, "I'm not hiding anymore."


	21. The Belated Return of Friends

There was a moment of awkward silence.

"So I'll just go and get James then?" Peter asked, moving to stand. Lily's eyes flickered toward him, then back at Sirius, who was barely hiding a smirk. Lily wanted to lift up a plate, throw it at his face, and watch it shatter that smirk that had no right - no effing right - to be there.

In order to keep all plates on the table, though, Lily turned to Peter and asked, "Did you know?"

"Know what?" Peter repeated, squirming. Lily gave him a hard look, and he glanced at Sirius before nodding. Lily clenched her teeth to keep herself from screaming out her frustrations in the middle of the Great Hall.

"We'll go fetch James for you," Sirius said, and though he said it with a straight face, Lily knew that tone. She knew he was teasing her. Teasing her as if he hadn't betrayed everything in their friendship, hadn't lied to her for months, hadn't played with her feelings for months.

Without thinking about it, Lily snatched a handful of grapes from a bowl on the table and threw them at Sirius as hard as she could. He looked up at her with confusion and hurt in his eyes. He looked shocked that she was upset with him, as if he couldn't understand that he had done something to deserve it. She just wanted to keep throwing things at him.

"Did you just throw grapes at me?" Sirius asked.

"Be glad the house elves don't serve bricks," Lily snapped, turning to leave the Great Hall.

"Lily!" called a voice behind her. Lily recognized Sam's voice and slowed to a stop -- more out of habit than desire-- to find Sam closing the gap between them. At least Sirius wasn’t with her. “Lily, we have to talk.”

"Really? What about?" Lily asked with clipped tones.

"About what happened last night."

"I thought we already talked about that." Lily didn't exactly remember what Tracy and Sam had said to her the night before, but she was sure they had been trying to calm her down, to make her forgive and forget.

Oh. No. Wait. Lily remembered that they admitted that they'd known all year that James had liked her. Oh, and they'd known that Lily thought James and Tracy were dating. Right. And they hadn't bothered to correct her.

"Don't be snide," Sam said.

"Don't lie to me for months on end.” Lily sped up as she stepped into the secret passage on the first floor. Sam grabbed her hand as the torches lit themselves and the wall slid shut.

"You cannot blame this all on me," Sam said, Lily ripped her hand away from her and took a step forward, ready to just—just shove her friend into that wall.

"Did you or did you not lie to me for the past five months?" Lily asked tightly.

"You could've ended that at any moment," Sam answered so effing calmly that Lily wanted to shake her until some sort of emotion came out.

"Oh really?"

"Yes," Sam said. "If you'd made a single mention of Sirius Black talking to you about-- about anything, then I could have put it together. You could have told Tracy you liked James last year and everything would have been different. You could have told _James_. Maybe I didn't tell you when I found out James liked you. Maybe I didn't tell you that you were wrong about him and Tracy, so what?"

"What do you mean 'so what'?" Lily asked incredulously. "You knew exactly how horrible he was to me when I liked him. You knew how hurt I was by the whole thing. How confused I was."

"And is that my fault?"

"Yes!" Lily screamed. "You were my best mate and you kept all of this from me!"

"You wouldn't have believed me. You'd never let anything be that easy," Sam said, echoing Sirius and that just made Lily angrier.

"I’d have believed you."

"You live in your own head and only deign to share what you think we want to hear."

"Stop trying to blame this on me! You and Sirius and Tracy and everyone need to stop blaming me!" Lily exclaimed, turning to walk away. Sam grabbed her hand.

"Tell me what you're thinking."

"Later," Lily muttered, trying to pull away as she blinked back damnable tears that she wished would vanish. The stone stairs were blurring. She was so angry and frustrated she was crying. Frick.

"No," Sam said, "tell me now."

"Why?"

"Because later you won't say anything."

"Sam--"

"Please.”

“I don’t want to!”

“You can’t yell at me for keeping things from you and then turn around and keep things from–-“

"Fine!" Lily wrenched her arm out of her friend's grasp. "Fine, you want to know what I have to say? Fine. I'm effing angry. So angry that it feels kind of like I hate you, but really it's just that I feel hurt and abandoned and useless."

”I didn’t abandoned you. You started having dinner with Gertrude. You had Sirius, and James.”

"You gave me twenty feet of parchment and then disappeared from my life! You don't sit by me in classes. You don't even come by Arithmancy anymore." She swiped at her tears, mad she even had to. "You didn’t tell me when the bloke I was obsessed with likes me. You don't correct my mistakes. It feels like you chose James Potter -- a practical stranger -- over me!"

"I always chose you.”

“Are you joking? You and Tracy disappeared for hours together without explanation. What was I supposed to think? That you knew James Potter liked me and wanted to discuss ways to force us to date? Am I insane?”

Sam shook her head, elegant hands ringing together. "We were trying to help you.” 

"By lying," Lily snapped. "Oh good."

“That's not what happened."

"No," Lily agreed, softening her words as her anger turned cold and old pain came to the surface. "No, you're right. You've been avoiding me for much longer than all of this. Actually, you’ve been distant since New Year's Eve and that damnable Ball. Well you know what? It's not my fault that Voldemort's Death Eaters attacked that Ball and avoiding me won't help you avoid him!"

Sam took a step back. "Lily, that has nothing--"

"Don't tell me that that has nothing to do with this. You and Tracy haven't been able to look me in the eye since that night." A sob threatened to cut off Lily’s ability to speak, but she screamed her way through it. "Don't you think I felt dirty enough after that night? That I was ashamed about what happened? And then you wouldn't even let me laugh about it. He's just a man, Samantha. He'll grow old and die or some Auror will land a lucky curse, but either way he will die."

Sam pulled her shoulders back. "I know that, Lily."

"Then why do you act like this? What did I do?" Lily leaned back against the wall and slid to the floor, wrapping her arms around her knees. Sam also lowered herself to the ground, her back straight against the wall. Sam, who had always been a caricature of the stereotypical witch, looked composed even as she began to cry.

"I didn't know," Sam said, looking at Lily with her large brown eyes and pitiful expression.

"You didn't know what?" Lily asked, looking at her hands.

"I didn't know that you'd ever imagine--" Sam stopped and took a deep breath, wiping her tears off her face. “I didn't intend to avoid you. Ever. It just happened."

"It always does," Lily muttered, thinking about how she didn’t even know Vernon Dursley. Lily wrote her parents maybe once a month. She saw Adrianna once a year, her very best friend when she was young who had been so supportive over the holiday. Lily hadn’t intended to distance herself from them, she had merely lost the words she needed to communicate with them because she didn’t want to lie about everything being wonderful or admit the truth about the threat that Voldemort posed.

“It shouldn’t have happened to us,” Sam said.

“No,” Lily agreed, “it shouldn’t have. And it hurts the most with you because you were-- you _are_ my best friend. You were the one that knew I needed you."

For what might have been the first time in their friendship, Sam looked deeply unsettled and ashamed.

"I'm scared of what's coming, Lily," Sam confessed, "but I never meant to take that out on you. I know that you-- I know that this has absolutely nothing to do with you. Only me."

"Great," Lily muttered, swallowing back her tears, still angry. Actually, she was angrier because of how sad she now felt. She looked at her watch, stood. "I have to go to Transfiguration now."

"All right," Sam said, looking at her knees. Had she always been so passive? Lily didn’t know. Couldn’t remember. Gertrude would have stopped Lily, but Sam said nothing more as Lily moved the leave, pausing to look at Sam and swallow her anger enough to address the girl.

"We'll talk later," Lily said, turning and walking away, wishing she hadn't promised herself she wouldn't blow up any more walls. It would have felt divine to destroy something right then.

"No," Sam whispered causing Lily to pause in her step, "we won't."

But Lily didn’t turn back. Instead she walked away from Samantha Caldwell, who had had been a best friend and a constant in Lily's life since she was twelve. She'd been the only one that Lily had trusted with her secret infatuation of James Potter. Sam was the friend whose opinion of Christian had ended their relationship. Sam had known everything it was possible to know about Lily and still she'd betrayed Lily, kept her in the dark about James’ feelings, played with her emotions by perpetuating the idea that James and Tracy were dating, and distanced herself from Lily in order to feel less fear about Voldemort.

Maybe later Lily would be able to forgive Sam, but at that moment blowing up a wall seemed like an infinitely better option.  

 

**~*~*~**

Lily was the first to arrive at the Transfiguration classroom. She sat in the front row and watched the door, watched the pockets of students enter and take their seats. Tracy came in, caught Lily's eye, looked at the ground and took a seat in the far back. Christine came in, plopped herself down right next to Lily, flipped open her book, and pulled out her homework to make a few last-minute corrections.

Sirius Black came in after a pack of Ravenclaws. Lily locked eyes with him, saw him look at her with apologetic eyes right before his face closed off and he looked like he was asking her to a high stakes game of Exploding Snap. Then he stepped aside to reveal James Potter, looking a bit like death walking. More than a bit, actually.

But James still managed to meet Lily's hard look with a slew of emotions: weariness, desire, regret, and finally determination. Neither he nor Lily looked away as he moved into his usual seat in the back row next to Tracy, who stood and moved away.

James broke their stare and looked sadly at the empty chair. Lily felt a brief stab of pity for him and not a little gratitude for Tracy.

Then she remembered that Tracy had known that James liked Lily, and Lily's gratitude evaporated.

"How did you answer number twelve?" Christine asked, closing her book. Lily, glad for an excuse to avoid thinking about James Potter, grabbed her homework out of her bag and handed it to Christine.

Somehow Lily managed to take out her notes and listen to McGonagall's explanation of reciprocated transfiguration — changing one item and having that change reflected on a different, similar object — and she even took notes. It was like a very focused tunnel vision. It occurred to her that the silver lining of that horrible situation would be excellent note taking.

"To summarize, what objects can the _Atomius Citarion_ spell affect?" McGonagall asked the room.

Annoyed with life in general and unwilling to let irritating silences follow the professor's questions, as normally happened, Lily said, "Metal objects smaller than a fist."

"And which objects can its sister spell effect?" Professor McGonagall asked, lips thin, obviously annoyed that Lily hadn't raised her hand.

"Unrefined natural objects the size of a bludger or smaller," came James's voice from the back of the room. Lily turned in her seat to find James Potter staring at her, not smiling, not frowning, just staring. She glared, turned back to the front of the room.

"When will the object change to mimic the original?" Professor McGonagall prompted, looking for hands.

"With the _Atomius Citarion_ it could take up to an hour, depending on distance," Lily answered.

"The spell wouldn't work at all if the objects were over one-hundred kilometers from one another," James added.

"But the sister spell has an immediate response, so it's easier to tell when you fail," Lily finished, unwilling to let James have the final word.

"Unless you simultaneously cast a _Tempurus Esperatte_ and wanted it to be delayed," James said. Lily wanted to turn around and curse him so badly right then that she had to grab her desk to refrain from attacking that lying, deceitful prat.

"If you wanted it to be delayed, you could just use the _Jutarium_ Charm and not have to cast two N.E.W.T. spells at the same time," Lily said.

"Not if you were using a material--"

"That displayed properties not contained in a Nobel Element," Lily recited, cutting him off. "Thanks for quoting the textbook to us, James."

"Thank you, Mr. Potter, Miss Evans," Professor McGonagall interrupted harshly. "Next time, try to raise your hands."

They said nothing. Lily was still seething with irritation. Besides, if either of them had acted contrite or promised to raise their hands the time, they would have been lying: the next time McGonagall asked a question, James and Lily shouted out the answer again, adding details to fight for the last word of expertise.

The whole process had the unfortunate effect of driving Lily to the brink of insanity. She wanted to throttle James. He, growing louder and louder with each answer, seemed similarly angered.

McGonagall didn't seem to be faring that well either at the end of the class period when she asked Lily and James to stay behind. Once the rest of the students left, Lily and James stood in front of her desk. They didn’t touch. They didn’t even glance at one another.

"I'm glad to see you both participating more in class," McGonagall began. Both their mouths fell open. What the hell?

"What?" James asked.

"It's nice to see two of my students participate more," McGonagall repeated, looking at James and almost smiling. Lily wanted to roll her eyes and then throw up. Even McGonagall had a crush on freaking Potter. "However, if either of you ever interrupt my class as you did today, I will take off points and issue detentions."

"Yes, Professor," they muttered together.

"You're excused."

Lily turned and practically sprinted out of that room, away from McGonagall and the lingering memory of what a spectacle she had made of herself in that class. But then, of course -- of freaking course -- James caught up with her and cut her off.

"You can't avoid me forever," James said.

"Excuse me, genius, but I never tried to avoid you," Lily snapped, glaring at him. "You tried to avoid me, remember? The whole not-coming-out-of-your-room-in-time-for-Arithmancy-thing?"

"But I'm here now," he answered, meeting her furious gaze without fear.

"Sure, because I told your best friends to go up to the dorm and make you go to class, coward." He flinched. Lily shook her head, trying to walk around him. He grabbed her arm and pulled her into one of the unused classrooms.

"What do you think you're doing?" Lily asked, fuming as he led her into the middle of the room.

"I'm offering the chance to talk about what happened," James answered. "You can leave if you like, but you seem like you need to get something off your chest. Here’s your chance."

He turned motioned grandly around the room. She took three calming breaths, looked out the window at the beautiful spring day outside, and realized his amber eyes were staring at her, waiting for a response.

"Why did you do it?" Lily screamed, resisting the urge to shove him. Her own vehemence surprised her, but her emotions were running high after that lesson. "What did you want from me? What do you want now?"

"You. I just wanted you," he said, looking at her with such longing that she literally ached. He looked like he hurt as much as she did, like he hated this situation as much as she did. "What did you want?"

"I wanted"-- Lily looked down at her hands and then back at him, torn between frustration, anger, sadness, and irritation-- "I wanted this."

She took a step forward, put her hands on either side of his face and pulled him down to her level so that she could press her lips against his. Then Lily kissed him with angry lips, kissed him so hard that she was sure she was bruising something, but whether it was her heart or her lips she could never say. When she pulled back he looked both dazed and upset.

"I shouldn't have done that," Lily said, letting her hands fall to her sides and stepping away and feeling cheap -- so very cheap -- for having been weak. She shouldn't have kissed him. She shouldn't have. But damn. It had felt so good. And it wasn't her fault she couldn't kiss him. It was his.

"Why not?" James asked, taking a step forward, wrapping his arm around her waist. And Merlin help her, it felt wonderful. He kissed her hungrily and let him hold her so close to him that it felt indecent. And wonderful. After all this time, all her lusting after him, all of the craziness of falling for Remus-- oh. Oh wait. That's right. This was effing weird.

Lily stepped out of his reach.

"No. Not yet," she said. She was about to comment on his lying, on his betrayal and on her hurt, but when she caught the look on his face, she froze. He looked devastated. Frick! Fine. She sort of admitted to herself that he'd been hurt too. Hadn't Gertrude mentioned something like that? But you know what? No. Eff that. No. Lily hadn't pretended to be someone she wasn't. She hadn't done anything nearly as repulsive as he had.

Then why, why, why did she want nothing more than to wrap her arms around him and snog him until they both forgot this whole effing mess? Why was she such a freaking hormonal, senseless teenager?

This sucked.

"Frick. I hate this," Lily muttered, turning to leave the room.

"Hate what?" James asked, halting her movements even as she reached the door.

"I hate that you made this not okay," Lily complained, leaning her head against the door, her right hand on the doorknob.

"Made what not okay?" At least his questions didn’t make her want to banish him through a window, off a tower, and into a dragon. At least he wasn't acting like the James she had thought she'd known. He was, instead, acting like the Remus she'd thought she'd known. But which one was he really? Was he wonderful Remus-James (Jamus) or was that just acting? Or had he been wonderful all along and she simply hadn't noticed? Frick. She hated this uncertainty.

"I hate that you made this -- us -- not okay," Lily clarified, flapping her hand over her head still pressed to the door.

"This is okay," James said. He was definitely closer.

"This is not okay," Lily protested, turning around and finding that he had taken a step toward her. "This is in no way okay. This might have been okay without the lying and potion-ing, but now, right now? Definitely not okay."

"What would you have had me do?" James snapped, surprising Lily into turning. Was he as angry and frustrated as Lily? Eff that.

"Don't yell at me! I'm not the one that made this mean, manipulative decision!"

"And of course this was mean and manipulative!" His voice was laced with sarcasm. "It couldn't possibly have been a desperate attempt to get to know you, to understand what the hell was going on inside your head, to finally learn if you were really a girl that I ought to be obsessed with. No, it could never have been an attempt to spend more time with you because I liked you. No. It was mean and manipulative."

"So you did this because you liked me?” Lily repeated, incredulous. “You tricked me into falling for a different bloke because you _liked_ me? Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

"It wasn't a different bloke," James insisted, throwing his hands into the air as he came closer. "It was me! Always me!"

"And it's always been you, James!" Lily exclaimed, shoving him backward, false demonstrations of happiness gone. "I told you that last night! It's always been you and it could have been you now, except that you're an effing idiot."

"So that's it?" James asked angrily, staying where she had shoved him. "One mistake and that's it?"

“One mistake? Are you insane? You broke school rules, endangered students, pretended to be someone else, lied to me every patrol–-“

"Everything I said was honest,” James said. “That's why I didn't want you asking about family! I didn't want to lie to you!"

"Oh!" Lily exclaimed with mock excitement, clapping her hands together. "You didn't want to lie to me? That changes everything, doesn't it? I mean, you never pretended to be Remus except-- oh, that's right. You used the Polyjuice Potion to make yourself look like him!"

"Yeah, except for that, I was honest!" James answered. Idiot. Freaking idiot.

"Oh, that's fine then," Lily said. "You know, maybe I'll just go snog Matt McGrath or Remus now, since one of us has thought I've liked them for months now. Maybe one of them will secretly be someone I like Polyjuiced and then everything will work out. Yes, that sounds like a brilliant plan since that happens all the time."

James looked at her, stunned and visibly controlling his anger, then he took three steps forward and Lily thought he was going to hit her, but instead his hand grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her into another kiss.

And good grief how she enjoyed this kiss. He was angry this time too, but she wasn't about to let him have the upper hand. She kissed him with all of her own anger and frustration and irritation, pulling him as close as she could. She'd wanted this for two years and even if he'd done something terribly stupid, she'd be damned if she wouldn't enjoy kissing him.

When they broke apart, both were out of breath.

"That’s what I think of you kissing someone else," James said, still holding her. With the hands she'd used to grab his shoulders and bring him closer, Lily pushed him away.

“That’s a very vague and confusing statement."

“It means I’ll hex whoever kisses you.”

“Then I’ll go snog Sirius and kill two birds with one stone.”

"Stop pretending like you don't want to be with me," James replied, smirking. Was he kidding? Was he effing kidding? No. No. He'd really just said that. Lily took three more steps away from him, unable to even think of a coherent response. What an idiot.

"I can't believe you said that," Lily said, so angry she could barely see clearly.

"I was kidding--"

"Very funny," Lily snapped as she spun around and grabbed the door handle and yanked it open. But James, who was faster, stronger, and taller than she, reached above her right shoulder and stopped the door with his hand. And now she was trapped between his body -- his nice, safe, warm, and wonderful body -- and the unopened door in front. And was it bad that she just wanted to sigh and never move? Yes! Yes it was.

"Don't leave. Don't run," he said in clipped tones, and his voice was quiet again, right beside her ear, enticing, pleading, stealing her anger with its softness.

"You stupid prat," Lily replied, though she didn't move.

"Don't leave," he repeated, retracting his right hand. Lily felt him put it on her hip and she shivered a bit. "I'm sorry."

"No, you're not," Lily said without thinking. She'd always before imagined James Potter to be incapable of being apologetic, but she'd come to find Remus to be so sincere. And if they were the same person -- well, it hurt to have a person's entire opinion of someone changed overnight, didn't it?

"I am," he said. "I'm sorry. Don't leave."

And oh how Lily loved this moment: loved leaning back slightly and pressing against him and finding his left hand sneaking around her middle, fingers curled so that the backs of his nails ran across her stomach. She loved the way her head leaned back to rest on his shoulder and his face relaxed against her hair. She hated how much she loved their position.

"I can’t just forgive you," Lily said, blinking back tears of frustration and anger as she enjoyed their position for a few more moments.

"Why not?" he asked, tightening his grip on her stomach.

"Because I don't trust you, because you don't think what you did was wrong," Lily said, pushing away from him, pulling open the door and moving to leave.

"I'm still the bloke that patrolled with you, that you liked and kissed. The one you pulled away from because you were thinking about me."

Embarrassment threatened to overrun Lily, but she pushed it away.

"No," Lily replied, turning, "you're not. That bloke understood me. He told me the truth. He respected me and-- and he didn't make me practically hate myself for falling for him. No. No, that's not you. That's not what I see when I look at you."

"It is,” James said, exasperated. “Why are you being so frustrating? Why can't you just--"

"Just what? Just forget that you lied?"

“Yes. Why can't you just move on?"

"That's not how these things work!" Lily said. "That's not how life works. You can't just forget the bad parts and proceed with the good."

"That’s idiotic. You’re willingly making yourself unhappy by being so stubborn." His words so reminded her of something Remus would say on patrols that it was like a physical slap to the face. She opened the door and walked through it. He followed her into the corridor and said angrily, “Fine. Fine, if that's really what you want. Fine. Leave.”

"Glad you understand," Lily said, walking away. Lily hadn't thought anything could hurt more than watching Remus's face melt into James's. She didn't think her heart could hurt any more than that. She was obviously mistaken. This hurt more. Oh Merlin, this hurt so much she didn't know how she could stop hurting. He was giving up. He really wasn't the bloke she'd come to know on patrols. He'd been acting.

And so the relationship that never should have been ended before it even began. It was doomed, she supposed, from the deceitful beginning.

"Lily," called James, making Lily briefly push her morbid thoughts out of her mind as she stopped walking.

"What?" she replied without turning. She didn't want him to see her crying. How had she messed this up? No! No. This wasn't her fault. This was his. All his. And Sam's and Tracy's and Sirius's and maybe even Peter's and Remus's.

"I told you once that I was too stubborn to give up on that girl I liked," James reminded her. Lily hesitated. Yes, 'Jamus' had once told her that. Had she been the girl they talked about? Had he been talking about her just as much as she'd been talking about him? How had they not clued in?

"I remember," she said.

"So you can walk away now, but know that I'm still stubborn," he announced. She laughed a little even as a sob escaped her throat. "And I'm still that bloke you fell for."

"You mean Remus?" Lily asked with not a little bit of bitterness in her words.

"No. I mean James, who looked like Remus."

"Right," Lily muttered, shaking her head in disbelief. "Right." But she didn't believe him, didn't think he was that person. As much as she wanted him to convince her that he was, she didn't think he could.

"James?" Lily called, frozen, glad to see he hadn't gotten out of shouting distance. He turned, one raised eyebrow. "I'm so mad at you right now that I want to blow up something heavy, pick up the sharp pieces, and throw them at you."

James laughed. "Good. I'm so frustrated with you that I want to toss first years into the lake."

"Yeah, well, good," Lily said, childishly needing to be the last one to speak. She turned to leave.

Lily had a free period and spent it mashing small, squashable food in the kitchen, frustrated that this was now her life, that she didn't want to talk to Tracy, and had a strong aversion to facing Sam again. Oh, and she thought about James Potter and how he had to have missed Defense in order to talk to her. Yes, she thought about that much more than she should have. 

 

 

**~*~*~**

 

Talking to Remus was Lily's goal the next day. Well, that and to curse all of her friends into oblivion. Luckily, the first was the only goal she managed to accomplish.

"Hey Remus," Lily said, swallowing the bile that seemed to have moved into her throat.

"Hello Lily." He looked horrible. Well, he must have been in the Hospital Wing for a reason. Oh, and he was probably a werewolf, but Lily decided to lie to herself and pretend like she didn't believe that. It wasn’t hard to do since werewolves still seemed a bit like the Easter Bunny to her. Yes, denial seemed the best option since that was just one more thing that she would have to process and deal with, and that seemed like too much.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

He nodded. “I’m fine.”

"Well, not too fine. You _are_ in the Hospital Wing.”

"Yes, well, I just popped in for a visit with Pomfrey," he said. "We're very close." Right. He was joking around with her. Acting as he probably imagined James did on patrols. Obviously he had no idea that Lily knew the truth. Well.

"I know that James has been Polyjuicing himself and coming on patrols with me." No one ever said Lily had tact. And people had definitely mentioned that she was too blunt for her own good.

"Oh-- I--" Remus looked like he wanted to throw up. Well, good. Misery loved company and all that.

"Yeah, just wanted to let you know that I'm not going to stalk you anymore," Lily said, adjusting her bag on her shoulder and preparing to leave with the little shred of mashed up dignity that she pretended to still have.

"I'm sorry," Remus said quietly, causing her to stare at him.

"You're sorry?"

"Sorry that I let him do it," Remus explained. Oh. Lily had known that Remus was repentant. She remembered that conversation she had overheard: Remus had said what James was doing was mean and manipulative and that he wouldn't do it anymore. Then he had gone ahead and switched with James once more.

"I know you didn’t want to do it," Lily said, but she didn't accept his apology. Sam and Tracy and especially Sirius had at least thought that they were working toward the common good. They had deluded themselves into believing they were doing the right thing for Lily and James. Remus had known it was wrong and still he'd agreed to do it. That, in Lily's book, made him worse than any of the other people involved in this whole sordid affair.

"Are you and James dating then?" Remus asked. Lily pulled a face.

"No." She thought about how James had acted in class that day: shouting out answers, trying to answer faster or louder than Lily, egging her into shouting louder and faster. She'd studied extra hard for Potions just to crush him beneath her heel.

"You're not?"

"Ask him about it," Lily forced herself to say. She was used to trusting the person she saw as Remus: talking about everything from her family to her troubles with Christian to her love of freaking chocolate. And now to look at him and keep her thoughts to herself... It was difficult.

"You don't have to stop stalking me," Remus offered.

"I don't?" Lily asked, emotionally detaching herself from the conversation.

"It was kind of nice having someone sit by me every class." Remus was obviously trying to make the best of this situation. Well, eff that. Lily didn't quite know how she had believed that this Remus could have been the same bloke she had patrolled with for five months.

But her anger made her harsh. Or maybe just honest. Or both. Both would be preferable.

"I'm sure I'll sit by you again," Lily lied. This hurt too much, rubbed her nose in her own idiocy too much. No, this talking-to-Remus thing was probably going to have to end.

"I'm glad." There was an awkward pause as Lily turned to leave again, thinking ahead to dinner and how she could avoid all possible interaction with anyone who wasn't Will McGrath, the only person she really wanted to talk to that night.

Just as she realized she could eat in the kitchens, Remus said, "He begged me."

"What?" Lily turned but didn’t approach him.

"James," Remus said, "he begged me to switch with him. And I knew I shouldn't let him, but after talking to you and knowing how miserable you were on patrols and that Matt was asking certain-- things-- I just--" He stopped himself. Despite Lily's anger, she felt sympathetic and hated herself for it. She didn't know what to say to him.

"I should go to class."

Remus nodded, opened his mouth, then closed it, and nodded. "Don't get hit by any bludgers."

Lily blinked. "What?"

Remus looked guilty as he repeated, "Don't get hit by any bludgers."

"Was that you?" Lily asked, letting her bag slide off her shoulder as she walked back toward him. "Were you the one that pulled me out of the path of that bludger all those months ago?"

He nodded.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Lily asked. Then she scowled. "Never mind. When could you have told me? During the patrols you apparently didn't attend?

He shrugged and looked at her with his damnable apologetic eyes and Lily hardened her heart.

"How did you do it?" she asked.

He hesitated. "I'd been sick that morning." It was probably a Full Moon, Lily thought. "And a friend let me borrow their invisibility cloak to go to the game without making people wonder where I was and I stayed after to see the scrimmage and when I was walking up, I happened to see the bludger and I pulled you away without thinking."

"You could have told me. You could have said something," Lily said. Remus just looked at her for a long moment and she looked back, uncomprehending, until it dawned on her that no, he couldn't have told her. Couldn't have said a thing. Lily and Remus weren't friends. They had been silent patrol partners. They hadn't even known that the other person went to the Kitchens. When would he have had the time to tell her that he had saved her from having her face bashed in?

Lily has been so stupid to think that Remus had been acting normally on patrols.

They weren’t friends.

They weren’t almost more than friends.

They were nothing.

Liky hated herself right then, wanted to hide in an unused closed and claw out someone eyes and blow up another wall. She’d thought Remus was her freaking soul mate or some other stupid, contrived love-sick title.

"I hope you feel better," Lily said to Remus Lupin, a bloke in her year she didn't know, whom she fled from before he could see her swiping tears from her cheeks for a break up that was all in her head.  

 

 

**~*~*~**

 

Her clever plan to avoid all people during dinner prevailed: Lily ate in the kitchens with Gertrude. They hadn’t spoken much, only a few words. Nonetheless, sitting with her strange Slytherin friend had calmed Lily and made her feel better after such an emotionally charged day. They agreed to eat dinner together the next night as well, which happened with relative ease as the two ate Italian food.

But after they left the kitchens, after they had split ways and Gertrude had just turned a corner, Lily spotted Tracy standing in the middle of the corridor looking defensive with her broom in hand. Lily’s mood plummeted.

"What were you doing with Gertrude Wrightman?" Tracy asked.

"What?" Lily asked, trying to determine if this was the first conversation Tracy and she had since the Great Meltdown. Yes, Lily realized, it was. Nice that her friend made started hostile.

"You just left the kitchens chatting with Gertrude Wrightman. Since when have you been friends with Gertrude Wrightman?"

"I don't know that we're actually friend.” So Lily was being petty again. Who didn’t have petty moments?

"She's dangerous, Lily.” Tracy was obviously an idiot.

"Neat." Lily walked around her to head to the common room.

"Don't just brush me off, Lily," Tracy said, swing around with that stupid broom still in hand. "You always do that. Stop. Listen. Gertrude's family is completely Slytherin—“

"And mine is Muggle. What of it?" Lily snapped, stopping at the top of a staircase to glare at Tracy.

"But you're not a Muggle. She's still a Slytherin," Tracy answered.

"And?"

Tracy was standing in her ridiculous Quidditch practice outfit. “Slytherins are evil.”

"Evil?" Lily repeated, staring opened-mouthed at her ridiculously prejudice friend.

"They are," Tracy insisted.

"Are you even listening to yourself?" Lily asked. "Because you've just suggested that a fourth of the students here are evil, that everyone from the smallest eleven year olds to the eldest eighteen year old wearing a green and silver scarf is evil."

"They are and just because you think you've found a good one doesn't mean anything. She'll turn her back on you the moment it's convenient--"

"Shut up, Tracy!" Lily suddenly snapped. The tiny girl looked shocked. "Stop acting like you understand other people. You don't. You make shitty assumptions from your high horse and assume your word is divine. Stop it."

Tracy’s grip on her broom tightened. "If this is about James--"

"This is about you!" Lily cut her off. "This is about the way that you feel like you're good enough to dictate what other people ought to know about their own lives and the lives of the people around them. This is about you having absolutely no right to judge people you don't know."

Tracy said, "I don't want to fight with you."

"Oh. Good. Then we don't have to talk anymore about stupid stereotypes." Lily walked away, Tracy at her heels. They turned the corner.

"Lily, you need to be careful."

"And you need to butt out," Lily said. "Or at least stop talking to me as if you aren't just as angry as I am. I know you are. Why can't you just start yelling like a normal person?"

"Or blowing up walls?" Tracy asked, gesturing at the walls with her broom. "Yes, that's right: my brother does tell me things. Glad to know you're not mad at me, though."

Lily heard the sarcasm in Tracy's voice and briefly remembered lying to Will and telling him that she wasn't mad at his sister.

Lily looked at Tracy and asked, "What do you want?"

"James lied to me too, Lily," Tracy said, shaking her head at her friend. " I thought we were friends, but both of you kept so much from me--"

"Tracy--"

"I thought he was such a good bloke, Lily," Tracy said. "He had me charmed too. I hate that I trusted him so much, but I can't take that back. I can't."

Lily wanted to argue this point with Tracy, wanted to defend James, and for that she felt like complete trash.

"James lied to me too," Lily said, still angry.

"Yeah, well, I also trusted you," Tracy said, reaching into her pocket and extracting a thick envelope that she handed to Lily before turning and leaving Lily alone in that corridor.

It was the end of a long, horrible couple of days and after a minute, bitterly gripping that sealed envelope, Lily just started screaming in frustration. And tears escaped her eyes and fell to the ground as she sat down in that corridor and wept with anger.

 


	22. Redefining Friends

“You're being stubborn," Gertrude told Lily as the house-elves took away all of their dishes. It would probably be their last dinner before the end of term.

"About anything in particular?" Lily asked, putting her elbow on the table and resting her chin in her hand.

"About James, obviously," Gertrude said, putting her hands in her lap. "And the rest of your friends."

Lily shook her head. "I'm not being stupid."

"I didn't say stupid. You're being stubborn." Gertrude took a long, deep breath and scrutinized Lily. "You're going to forgive them eventually. Why wait?"

Lily looked away. "How do you know I'll forgive them?"

Gertrude waved her hand in Lily's direction. "You started rationalizing their behavior the moment you learned of it. It's not in your nature to think badly of people for more than a moment. This month has been horrible for you."

Lily didn't quite know how to respond. "It hasn't been horrible. It wasn't fun, but-"

"Don't you see, you're talking about what they did, saying that it wasn't that horrible."

"It was—" Lily cut herself off. She didn't know how she felt about what happened anymore. "I'm tired of talking about this."

"You’re ready to forgive them.”

Lily shrugged, wanting to sigh. They were in the midst of exams and the end of the year would be coming in mere days. The holiday would offer a much-needed respite from this drama that strained her friendships with Sam and Tracy.

"But why do you insist on keeping James and Sirius at arm's length if you've already grown tired of your own anger?" Gertrude asked.

Lily didn't know why exactly she avoided them anymore. She was fairly certain she'd once had a reason, but didn't want to talk about that with Gertrude. It sounded too much like she was avoiding them out of pride.

"You're not worried about Sam or Tracy?" Lily asked.

"No. Samantha and Tracy haven't convinced me of their motives, while I know that James was trying his best to become your friend and Sirius thought that the Polyjuice plan was the only way to make you and James happy."

Lily scoffed. "Like he ever cared about making me happy."

"You're not stupid, Lily. Stop acting like you are," Gertrude said. Lily glared. "I know that your friends lied to you, but they aren't malicious people. I've known Sirius all my life and I've never seen him trust someone to be a good friend for James Potter. Not even Remus Lupin or Peter Pettigrew, not really. So tell me why he worked silently for months in order to have you and James grow closer. Tell me why he’s been sending you notes for weeks trying to make you smile."

"Sirius doesn't think that much of me," Lily said, putting both of her hands on the dark wood table.

"Have you looked at him recently?"

"Have _you_ looked at him since New Year's?" Lily countered, feeling defensive and guilty. Yes, she knew that she was the cause of some of his pain. She hated that. "He's been a mess since then."

"He's always been a mess, but this time it's because of you," Gertrude said, tapping her cleanly manicured nail on the table, "and your forgiveness can fix all of this."

"So you want me to forgive and forget this whole mess?" Lily asked, trying to hide the guilt she felt for the way she'd treated her friends and remember why exactly she'd alienated them in the first place. It wasn't easy. No matter what they had done, did they deserve for her to push them so far away?

"You forgave and forgot the Ball," Gertrude said.

Lily looked up, forgetting her train of thought. "What?"

"You never hated the Death Eaters, nor even the Dark Lord," Gertrude said. "You dismissed them. Pitied them." Gertrude sounded rather disgusted by that idea, but also rather proud of Lily's decision. "So why are you acting like you hate two men who have done nothing but seek your approval?"

"I don't hate James or Sirius," Lily said, thinking of Sirius's F.A.D. note and James’ sickle bets.

"You're doing a very good imitation of it, then. And in the process, you're hurting both of them."

That stung. "I never meant to hurt them. I just wanted some space. I just didn't want to deal with them or anyone." Instead, she had hung out mainly with Christine, Gertrude, Matt, Kevin, and other friends that hadn't been involved in the big plan.

"Stop ignoring them." Gertrude's hand reached out to Lily, but the Slytherin held herself back from actually touching the other girl. "Stop acting like they carry a deadly disease and start talking to them. Let them apologize because you've been ready to accept their apology for a month now."

"It's not that simple," Lily said.

"Yes, it is," Gertrude replied. "For you, it is."

"For me? Why? Would you forgive them?" Lily disliked the way Gertrude made her feel like she was such an oddity.

Gertrude paused, blue eyes fogging over briefly before they snapped back into focus. "I don't know."

"But you expect me to.”

"You already have," Gertrude said. "You spent the last month forgiving them, it's just that you don't trust them."

Lily laid her head on her arms on the table, realizing how right her friend was: she had forgiven them. "I feel like a fool.”

"No," Gertrude said softly. In fact, it was the softest Lily had ever heard Gertrude sound. Lily looked over at her. "You’re just learning about the world.”

Lily sat up, looked at Gertrude's steady gaze a moment. "I'm only seventeen. Shouldn't I have a few more years of blissful childishness? Of ignorance?"

Gertrude smiled a small sad smile. "You're not ignorant, Lily. You're not blind. You're just good. Trusting."

“I'm not sure if I should feel insulted or not."

"And I'm not sure if I should admire your disposition, but I am certain I appreciate it."

Lily looked at the wall for a moment and said, "Sam apologized and Tracy wrote me a letter."

"Did that comfort you?"

"No," Lily said, shaking her head. "The letter was the most self-centered, unapologetic apology letter I've ever read."

"And Samantha's apology?"

Lily took a breath. "I don't know. I don't know what to even say to her."

"But with Sirius — with James — it's different," Gertrude said. Lily hated herself even as she nodded.

"Sirius and James have given me space.” She smiled. "Well, not completely, James still fights with me in class and Sirius sends me those daily notes that I ignore, but they've not made me feel worse. They haven't rubbed anything in my face."

"You need to get ready for your patrol," Gertrude said, standing and wiping off her school robes, though there didn't seem to be any dust on them. Lily stood too, though she let herself lean against the table and Gertrude moved to leave the Kitchens.

"I still don't trust James," Lily said.

Gertrude stopped and looked back at her. "You will in time."

"How much time?" Lily asked with a sardonic smile.

"You'll have to figure that out on your own.”

"I suppose I will."

Gertrude surprised Lily by nodding back. "You will."

Lily smiled, feeling suddenly overwhelmed by the compliment in her friend's few words. But as Gertrude left, a thought came to Lily and she called out, "You're wrong, you know. About Sirius. He respects and trusts you."

Gertrude neither turned around nor acknowledged Lily's word and she had to wonder if she had hurt her friend or soothed her.

Lily had the entire walk back to the portrait of the Fat Lady to think about what Gertrude said, and when she entered the Gryffindor common room, a few younger years called out to her and she waved back, but her heart wasn't in it. She made it back to her dorm where she threw herself on her bed and closed her eyes, willing herself to sleep through the awkward patrol she would have with Remus that night.

They weren't comfortable around one another, never having been friends, but now there was the added element of him having helped hurt her in the past. His guilt issues paralleled her own and despite herself she found herself trying to soothe him.

But the awkwardness with Remus had at least lessened over the last month. Her relationship with Sam and Tracy had stagnated or grown worse since Sam and she had fought in the secret passage and Tracy had given her that letter.

The tension in their dorm smothered out conversation and schoolwork. Work was done in the library, conversation was done with other friends, and the dorm was reserved for sleeping. Almost four weeks had passed like that.

Thinking of Tracy's letter and Gertrude's observations, Lily summoned it from her trunk and read it again.

_Lily,_

_I don't know how to begin this letter. I suppose I ought to tell you everything from the beginning. Well here: When we started having all of those Quidditch practices in June, James and I started talking. He asked if you ever talked about him. After I laughed at the suggestion, he told me that his goal was to make you realize how great he was. I thought he was ridiculous, but he was a nice to me. He charmed me and I'm so angry to have to admit that now._

_It took a while, but I finally realized that he genuinely liked you, and I felt bad because I knew you'd never like him if he kept acting like such a prat. So I decided to help him out, thinking that if you got to know him, you'd grow to like him. (I feel like such an idiot writing that now that I know how long you've liked him). And so I suggested he go to those Wednesday study things of yours. I figured if he didn't speak unless spoken to he couldn't freak you out and you'd grow comfortable enough around him to start talking. I know how you hate silence._

_But then everything spiraled out of control: the Ball happened and when we came back to school you were missing, James and Sirius and Remus were missing, and everyone was angry. Then James told me what he said to you at my party and I nearly killed him for his arrogance: it nearly ruined a year of my plans._

_Then James stopped going to your study things and told me that you knew that we had tried to make you like him. I tried apologizing for a week but you brushed me off like I didn't matter. And then Sam came and told me that you thought James and I were dating and that you liked him all along. Why didn't you just tell me?_

_Sam and I worked on new plans, but he came up to me in the common room and told me that he didn't need my help anymore. He'd watched you date Christian, become friends with Sirius, and reject him in front of crowds. I couldn't understand why he'd give up. It made me pity him and I hate that I did because he hadn't given up, he just went behind my back to get to you._

_When I realized he was using Polyjuice, I was furious with him. I still am. I haven't spoken to him since then. I couldn't believe he would stoop to this low. I thought he was a decent bloke. I thought he was my friend. I trusted him so much. He fooled me. But so did you, I realize now._

_Tracy_

No. Lily still couldn't find a single apology in those paragraphs. Couldn't find any sort of remorse. Tracy pointed fingers everywhere but at herself, and while Lily did feel guilty for not telling Tracy the truth, she couldn't bring herself to pretend like Tracy and she were fine. She talked to her and Sam about class and how their day went, but she was not about to stay up nights confiding in either of them. She wasn't about to talk about Gertrude or how she felt about James. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Oh, and finding out that James had only ever come to her study sessions because Tracy suggested it? That made her pretty angry, too.

But Lily didn't have time to mull over the letter because she had a patrol for which she was already late, so she shoved it in her pocket and headed out. 

 

 

**~*~*~**

 

Patrol began in the Entrance Hall with the unusual presence of two people Lily had not expected to see. The first was Matt McGrath, though that was no big surprise. Although it wasn't a full moon, Matt was the one who normally covered the shifts that Remus missed. The second person waiting in the hall was a bit more of a shock.

"Hi Christine," Lily said, grinning. Matt and Christine were like walking sunshine,  both comfortingly straightforward and honest. Tracy's letter had made her so angry that it was nice to see two people who never made her angry.

"Hello." Christine waved.

Lily nodded at the Head Boy. "Covering for Remus?"

"Remus's aunt had a set back," Matt said. Lily briefly wondered if that was sarcasm in his voice as he glanced at the high window with the perfect view of the half moon. Remus must have learned to disappear at odd intervals along with Full Moons. Clever.

"Any particular reason why my good friend Christine is here?"

Christine was leaning against the wall a few feet away from the pair of them, poking a suit of armor.

"Oh, Stumpy has a plan," Matt explained, glancing at his girlfriend.

"Find me!" Christine said, waving her arms. "Find me."

Matt gave Lily a half smile and a shrug, acknowledging how ridiculous Christine was being and adoring her for it nonetheless. Lily felt her heart grow.

"Out of bounds after hours, harassing the patrolling prefects, and I believe you're missing a piece of your uniform," Matt said, shaking his head, his smile undimmed. "That'll cost you all sorts of points."

"Only if you're willing to loose points as an accomplice, conspirator, and the one who broke the trunk on the fifth floor," Lily said.

"What trunk?"

"And now misleading or lying to a Prefect," Lily said. "You're in a bad way, Matt McGrath."

"Honestly, what trunk?"

"The one Lily broke this morning after our Potions exam," Christine said as she walked forward and looped her arm through Matt's. He looked at both of them for a moment, that attractive smile never leaving his face.

"You'd frame me, Lily?" Matt asked, free hand going to his heart.

"'Frame you'? No, no, no. I'm sure I would find corroborating evidence somewhere."

"Lily's very sneaky," Christine said, nodding. "She's bollocks at curses, but good at sneaking."

”Thanks?"

"Welcome," Christine said brightly. The trio began walked down the corridor. Lily found it amusing that Christine walked along Matt's usual patrol path and wondered how many times she had accompanied him before that night.

"You have any N.E.W.T.s tomorrow?" Lily asked Matt.

“No, tomorrow is for Divination, Potions, and Ancient Runes."

"How was Care of Magical Creatures today?" Christine asked. It momentarily shocked Lily that Christine knew his exam schedule. No matter how much Christine denied the use of words like boyfriend and anniversary, they really were close, weren't they?

"It went well."

"It should have." Christine looked at him. "Otherwise you're a moron."

Matt laughed as he disentangled from her and went to open a door. "Thanks, Stumpy."

"It's true.”

"Why?" Lily asked, peeking into a room on the right to feel more like she was actually accomplishing something on this particular night.

"His family owns the Eeylops Animal chain," Christine said. Lily remembered the name from Diagon Alley: Eeylops Owl Emporium. It sounded like there were other stores for other magical creatures. That made sense for why Matt would have picked up some of those skills, why Tracy had taken Care of Magical Creatures without any of her friends, and why Will owned such a beautiful bird.

"Now I know what to ask you to give me on my birthday," Lily said, smiling over at Matt.

"You'd be surprised how many people have that exact same sentiment," Matt said, that amused half-smile back on his face as he took Christine's hand in his.

"Can you give me a pony?" Lily asked earnestly. "Or maybe a dragon. Is that a witch version of a pony?"

"Since I don't know what you're talking about, I'll redirect your questions to my younger sister," Matt said.

"They're not talking," Christine answered before Lily could brush off the comment and move on.

"Still?" Matt asked, leaning around Christine to look at Lily, who scuffed her shoes along the ground.

"We're talking," Lily said. Just that day she and Tracy had worked together cordially in Transfiguration. Sure, the words they shared had been rather sparse, but it was a start, wasn't it?

"You don't have to talk to her," Christine said.

That seemed like an odd comment from Christine, who still seemed as close with Sam and Tracy as she had ever been, though she didn't know the entire story. Lily had only given her a vague description of their fight — Tracy had helped James trick her into liking him and hadn't told Lily about it until after James planned a trick of his own and didn't tell Tracy about it himself -- because Lily worried about how much Christine would share with Matt. Despite his role in the plot, Lily did not want to tip Matt off to the fact that Remus was a werewolf.

"I probably should start talking to her again," Lily said, looking down the corridor. "Talking to her earnestly."

"Start with James," Christine said.

"James Potter?" Matt asked at the same time as Lily asked, "What? Why?"

"He was the one that had no idea that he was hurting you," Christine said. "He was stupid, not mean."

It was a good distinction. "And so I should talk to him first?"

Christine nodded. "Then Tracy and Sam."

Lily stopped walking. "Why?"

Matt and Christine stopped too. He looked confused, but she bounced her weight between her feet, restless. "That's the order."

"Any particular reason?" 

"Because James used Polyjuice to help you. They didn't do that, but they lied to you," Christine said. Lily's heart skipped a beat.

"How do you know about that?"

"I knew all year."

Lily felt like someone had slapped her. "You were in on the plan?"

"No," Christine said, hands held out like she was weighing two options. "But I knew Remus is a werewolf so he couldn't patrol those days. I thought everyone knew."

Lily gaped. "But I told you I liked Remus!"

"I thought we were being sneaky, like with codenames. I knew. I thought you knew. I thought we were being clever." Christine shook her head. "We weren't."

"No, we weren't!" Lily snapped. She took three long breaths before looking at Christine again. "How could you have thought I'd know that?"

"Why wouldn't you know?" Christine asked, looking sincere despite the idiocy of the question. And before Lily replied, she let herself think about Christine for a moment. Yes, it was idiotic to imagine that Lily had known anything about the Polyjuice plan, but Lily knew that Christine--who was straightforward and accepting of most things without question, as she showed through her comment about Remus being a werewolf--would simply assume that everyone else knew everything she did.

"You're so odd," Lily said, feeling unexpectedly close to tears. Why did it feel so good to have someone know the whole story and understand why she would be mad at Tracy and Sam?

"But not the oddest you know," Christine said.

Lily shook her head. "No, not that."

Christine smiled happily and wrapped her arms around Matt, who looked confused and said, "You're not going to explain any of this to me, are you?"

"Why would we?" Christine asked.

Matt shrugged. "Because I'm Head Boy and Polyjuice is dangerous?"

Christine’s mouth twisted to the side, clearly unimpressed. "That's what you said about werewolves."

"Werewolves?" Lily asked, heart beating quickly again as she glanced at Matt, who looked steadily back at her and nodded.

"Stumpy told me about Remus," Matt said. Christine poked him in the stomach and he looked at her and smiled and told Lily, "It's alright. I talked to the Headmaster about it."

Christine leaned toward Lily. "I told him that was stupid."

"Dumbledore knew all about it," Matt said.

"Of course," Christine said, rolling her eyes. "Werewolves are registered."

"I like Remus, I do," Matt said, "but if he'd hurt anyone because I hadn't told someone, I would never be able to live with myself. Even though the law holds the human responsible for their actions during the Full Moon, I know enough about werewolves to know that they can't control themselves. Remus couldn't have kept himself from murdering his best friends."

Lily felt a tremor of fear at that idea: fear for Remus. It must be horrible not to be able to control yourself, not be able to protect those around you.

"I'm not going to tell anyone," Matt said, looking directly into Lily's eyes as if to assure her of his honesty. As if Lily would doubt his word.

Lily nodded. "I know."

"So will you talk to James now?" Christine asked as if the last minute of conversation hadn't happened. Lily appreciated her single-minded nature even as she struggled to stop thinking about Remus and his condition.

"What about Peter, Sirius, and Remus?" Lily asked.

"Why are you mad at them?" 

"I thought you knew."

Christine shook her head. "They're James's friends."

"They helped him trick me."

"They helped their friend: James," Christine said. "No reason to be mad at them."

"But Sam and Tracy?"

"They're your friends. They should have helped you."

"You have a very strange moral code," Lily said, looking at the moving stain glass picture of elves dancing around a fire. 

"But James should be first," Christine repeated.

"Why? So I can forgive him?"

"No," Christine said slowly, "so that you can tell him why you're still mad."

"Communication is key," Matt piped in. "I taught her that."

Christine looked grumpy as she muttered, "True."

"So you want me to tell him what?" Lily asked.

"Why you're mad and when you won't be anymore," Christine said, clearly reciting something. Matt squeezed her hand and kissed her temple. She looked oddly proud of herself.

"I don't know when I'll start trusting him again," Lily said. "He used that bloody potion."

"To seduce you," Christine said. And that was certainly an awkward response. What was Lily supposed to say to that? "You should talk to him."

Lily thought about the millions of reasons why that wasn't true, the millions of reasons why she ought to just avoid James for two more days, until they were on the train ride home. And then she thought of the one really good reason why she couldn't avoid him.

"I'm falling for him," Lily murmured.

"True," Christine agreed, leaning against Matt, "and he's already fallen for you. He tried to punch Matt."

"James did try to punch me," Matt conceded, "because he thought you liked me. And if he was Polyjuiced as Remus, which it sounds like he was, then he tried to punch me again as Remus just because he thought I'd hurt you by dating Christine. I don't know him well, but he does seem to care about you."

Lily had nothing to say to that. Nothing to deny.

Looking at Matt and Christine, who so effortlessly exuded their comfort with one another, who both believed that James really did like her, it was hard to deny that she desperately wanted to talk to him and begin to trust him again. She wanted to let him know how she felt. At the very least, she didn't want him to think she had stopped liking him.

"I have to go," Lily said.

"True," Christine said, wrapping an arm around Matt's waist and pulling herself against him.

"You don't have to go for us," Matt said, untangling himself and giving Christine an incredulous look.

"No," Christine answered, "for James."

Lily looked at her friend, gratitude in her eyes, and nodded.

 

 

**~*~*~**

 

Lily found Peter Pettigrew lounging in the common room. "Peter."

Peter looked up, surprise evident on his face. "Hi Lily."

She awkwardly smiled and went straight to the topic at hand. "I was wondering if you knew where James was."

Peter looked pleased that she asked, a smile coming to his face as he twisted around to scan the people in the common room. "Let's see. Sirius and Remus are up in the room, but I know he's not there. I'm here, but obviously he's not."

"Would he be in the library?"

Peter shook his head, seeming to think. "No. Not without any of us. And you aren't there either, so there'd be no point." He spoke so casually that Lily wondered if James really had gone to places just to be near her. That thought made her uncomfortable and rather pleased.

"You have any idea where else he might be?" Lily asked.

Peter considered it. "He's probably at the Quidditch pitch."

"The last game was a week ago.”

Peter nodded. "And he lost. He'll want to practice."

Lily nodded, remembering the hours she spent on the field the day after her team lost the girl's divisional when she was ten. "Thanks." 

 

 

**~*~*~**

 

Lily found James Potter flying circles around the Quidditch pitch. Her Muggle upbringing always found it extraordinary that a stupid little piece of wood should keep him hundreds of feet up in the air. But it did. It always did.

Lily considered all the ways she could gain his attention--the romantic option of grabbing a broom and flying up to him, screaming up at him in a terribly unladylike fashion, hexing him--but quickly decided to send red and gold sparks shooting from the end of her wand and signal him to come down. It worked like a first year charm.

"Lily?" he asked as he landed, eyes scanning her as if for wounds. The sun had long-since set and the only light came from the stars above them.

"Hi," Lily said, feeling unsettled now that she was actually in front of him and on the receiving end of his intense stare.

"Hi.” He ran a hand through his hair. Yep, she definitely still found that attractive. "How're you?"

"I'm good.” It was nearly midnight and they were standing on the Quidditch field and he looked carelessly charming, his hair wind swept and cheeks flushed, eyes sharp. "This is harder than I thought it'd be."

"I'm sorry," he said, leaning on his broom.

"Don't be. It's not your fault," Lily replied, twirling her wand between her fingers. Sparks shot out of the end. Embarrassed, she stopped and held it firmly as she looked up at him. His lips twitched upward. Great. Here she was trying to mend their relationship and he found her nervous twitching amusing. She must be a mess.

"When was the last time we spoke exactly?" James asked.

"Er... the Potions final?" Lily posed it as a question, but it wasn't. It had been the day before and they'd nearly been screaming at each other afterward about the effects of a time-delayed potion. She had channeled her desperation to kiss him into their argument.

"Ah, yes," James said. There was a pause.

"You were right about the side-effect of that charm on children,” she said grudgingly.

"Did you look it up afterward?"

Lily blushed. "Yep."

"I looked up the seven dueling rules for Charms." James hesitated only a moment. "You were right."

"Did you also happen to look up the third rune cycle of the Aegeans?" 

He stood up straight and readjusted his grip on his broom. "The index was wrong."

Lily huffed a laugh. She had missed this, easy banter with James and feeling challenged. She had missed this a lot.

"So what are you doing out here this late?" Lily asked.

"Trying to practice how _not_ to loose the cup and shame our house again," James said. He didn't seem to want to talk about that, though, because he quickly added, "You found Orion yet?"

Lily blinked. "What?"

"You still do find it before you go to bed every night, right? You haven't changed all your habits in a month, have you?"

"No, I haven't," Lily said. "I still find it. I just didn't imagine you'd remember that."

"I remember everything," James said. Lily thought back to all the details he had remembered from their conversations: her favorite ice cream, Adrianna's name, her sister's old doll that she'd given her for Christmas one year. The list went on and on. James inspired trust in people, inspired them to open up, inspired them to tell him what they loved and hated most about life. If Tracy no longer thought he deserved that information, then James made her feel vulnerable and weak. Lily understood how her tiny beater friend could have hated that.

"Sirius told you where I was?" James asked, tossing his broom back and forth between his hands a couple of times.

"Peter actually. He's a great help to a girl trying to stalk you.”

"We have a pact to always help stalkers.”

A moment passed with the two of them trying not to think about the proximity of the other, the fact that reaching out just so much would--

"You still stubborn?" Lily asked in a light tone, unable to ask him straight out if he was still liked her.

His eyes locked on hers, blazing in the moonlight, and her heart nearly burst out of her chest.

"I don't know anymore," he said. "You still angry?"

Lily clenched and unclenched her fists, trying to work out her nerves. "No, I'm not angry anymore."

"Really?"

“You were the one who said anger means you think something should have been different.” She looked over at the Forbidden Forest. It looked intimidating in the dark. "I remember--I tried to forget, but I remember you telling me about a girl you liked."

"Well, that's a bit awkward now," James said, scratching the back of his neck.

"But you"--Lily took a calming breath--"liked her, right?"

"Oh, yes," James said easily, hand falling to his side, broom loose in his other hand. “She was amazing."

"Was she? Are you sure?" Lily asked, eyes falling to the grass before dragging them back up to James, who’s leaned forward. "I'm pretty sure she was conceited, mean, and stuck-up. I remember you telling me that she thought she was better than you. I wouldn't want to hang out with someone like that."

"There was a bit of a miscommunication," James said fondly, his hand reaching for hers and falling back.

"Or maybe you just saw what she was really like for the first time."

"No," James said, "I was wrong. I spent a lot of time with her and she proved me wrong."

"That doesn't happen very easily, I've learned," Lily said.

"No, it doesn't," James agreed. "But it was worth being wrong this once since I got to be friends with that girl. At least, until I did something very stupid and she stopped talking to me."

Lily thought about that for a moment, the damp grass crunched under her feet as she rocked a bit. "Do you miss her, the girl I called a bitch?"

"I really do," he answered, putting a hand on her cheek. She leaned into it,

"You know the guy I liked?" Lily asked, forcing the words out.

"The idiot that didn't notice you?" James twirling his broom in anxious circles.

"Yes, see, turns out he did. Notice me, I mean." She looked at his profile until he turned back at her. "I was the idiot not noticing him."

"Another miscommunication?" James asked with an air of humor.

"They seem to be running wild these days," Lily said just as lightly, "ruining the days of perfectly happy people."

"Or, if Sirius is to be believed, perfectly amusing, blind people," James said. Lily smirked. They stood there for a long time, Lily unwilling to push the conversation further. She liked this too much, this talking to him and joking with him and standing in front of him. Even without kissing him (though she really did want to kiss him) this was wonderful. Being his friend was wonderful and she hadn't realized how much she missed it until this moment.

James looked at her as he clamped both hands on his broom. "This has been a really frustrating year for me, Lily.”

Lily's stomach twisted.

"After you yelled at me at the end of last year, I decided that I needed to change tactics. Tracy helped me with that, but then you were angry with me anyway. I thought you stormed out of that library because you knew I’d been working with Tracy to plan the things I was supposed to say to you.”

"I thought you were dating Tracy," Lily cut him off. Okay. Saying that aloud was embarrassing. How had she been so blind?

He gabbed a fistful of his hair. "And you actually did date that idiot Christian who was everything I never could be, and while I knew you didn't like me, I hadn't realized you wanted my polar opposite."

"I didn't," Lily said, blinking back tears. Goodness, she felt like such a bitch. James raised an eyebrow in doubt and Lily thought about Christian: he was tall, blonde, blue-eyed, imposing and serious. Did that make him James' opposite? Had that been one of the reasons she'd been so attracted to him?

"He was an arse," James said.

Lily thought of him stopping by to tell her about how he had wanted to give her a Portkey. "He's struggling with a lot."

"So Sirius says."

Lily pulled at her fingers. "I liked dating him. It felt good to like someone who was nice to me."

"I was nice to you.”

Lily smiled. "No you weren't. You said I was a Muggle, embarrassed me in front of loads of people--"

James winced. "I regret most of that."

"Not all?"

"Not the parts that made you like me."

It was a warm spring night filled with the smell of new grass and oncoming rain. It made it easy to admit: "That would be a lot of things."

"Like what?"

Lily shook her head, unwilling to tell him and realizing that that was because she didn't quite trust him yet. Damn. "I had liked you for a year when I met Christian, and it was nice that he wasn't like you."

"You are amazing for my ego."

Lily shook her head. "Liking you was hard. All consuming. Distracting."

"Liking you was like being a glutton for punishment.”

Lily had never thought about it like that, but she supposed that yelling at him that she'd never date him in front of a large group of their peers was awfully mean.

"I'm sorry that I hurt you," she said.

He waved her off. "You know, it wasn't my fault I was stupid around you. It just happened. I went into that train compartment over the Christmas holiday just wanting to talk to you. I made up some excuse about the Floo Network and then I insulted you. And at Tracy’s? I was just so mad that you were going on a date with that guy."

"Even though I looked good enough to be on your arm?" 

James closed his eyes, smiling for a moment before saying, "You looked incredible that that night. That dress-- yeah. Incredible."

Lily looked at the ground and shook her head. "Mrs. McGrath did everything."

James caught her eye. "She did a great job."

"If you promise not to let this get to your head too much," Lily replied, taking a deep breath and deciding to just say it, "I almost went weak at the knees that night because you looked so good."

He groaned, closing his eyes again. When he opened them, he looked like he had made a decision. "I drank a lot that night to avoid thinking about you and the French guy, and then Sirius owled me to inform me that he was running away from home and I arrived just in time to see him walking down the street with his trunk and a picture of himself that he ripped off the wall. He moved in with me that night. It was a crazy couple of weeks and I didn't even have time to imagine that Christian Knowles was the bloke you were dating and that he would take you to the Ball."

"Trust me, it wasn't a very good date," Lily said.

"I know, and I know I shouldn't be jealous of the fact that he took you to the Ball what with everything that happened, but I can't really help feeling angry that he put you in danger in the first place," James said. "You shouldn't have had to deal with that and he certainly shouldn't have left you there."

Lily shook her head. "It was just something that happened."

"You're still angry though, right?" James asked.

"It made me stronger," Lily said. "Strong enough to come down here and talk to you."

"Me, the bloke you want to avoid forever?" 

“You the bloke who scares me more than anyone else. Who makes me feel sharp and smart.”

"Smart enough to tell Remus that you two ought to snog to avoid going on patrol," James said bitterly.

Lily made an incoherent sound. She hadn't even remembered that until this moment: telling Remus they should snog after the other prefects were caught and then seeing James behind her, looking furious. "Why didn’t you hate me?"

"Because you were everything I wanted, fun and challenging and beautiful," he answered as he looked at her with sincere, captivating eyes that told her to trust him. "It all just made me try harder."

"Hard enough to steal from a seventh year project and pretend to be one of your best friends?"

He shook his head. "No, I did that because I overheard Matt telling you he thought Remus was a werewolf."

"How did you overhear that?"

"I'm sneaky."

"That's an annoyingly vague answer," Lily commented.

James shrugged. "I couldn't just let my friend rot, and I knew a seventh year had made Polyjuice Potion, too much of it too, so we arranged to steal some and then-- then I did the stupidest thing: I went on patrol with you and I never wanted to stop." He sounded so matter-of-fact about the whole thing. "I told jokes and you laughed. You made me laugh. You told Will McGrath about my prank on Sirius like you thought it was brilliant. Like you thought I was brilliant. And I just couldn't stop. I wanted to keep seeing you like that."

"You could have stopped. You could have told me what you were doing and why. You could have done a hundred thousand things differently."

"No, because then you'd have stopped looking at me like you did when we were on patrol."

"Then it _was_ a choice." It was hard not to admire his loyalty to his friends.

"No, it was--" He stopped himself and stared at Lily until she met his gaze and its intensity. "You wouldn't talk to me in class or at the library. You yelled at me outside. And I realize that I probably deserved that treatment for being such a git around you, but it doesn't change the fact that on patrol, it was like you were someone else. But it was all just because _I_ looked like someone else. And that was frustrating, but it was how it was, and I liked you so much that I couldn't give that up."

"Why did you like me in the first place if I was so horrible to you?" Lily couldn't help but ask. "If I yelled at you and pushed you away and--"

"You were very pretty." Lily laughed, but James continued, "And I found out that you were funny and had a nice laugh. You were strong, too. Yelled at me when you thought I did something wrong, no matter who was watching. And you're brilliant, despite the Troll on your Defense practical," James finished, looking down at her with such affection that she could have stayed in that exact spot, on the damp grass, forever.

Lily took a breath. "It hurt a lot when I found out you'd tricked me."

He blinked. "You remember talking about loving something and being frustrated by it? That was me every patrol, when you were so comfortable that you hugged me and wrapped your arm around my waist and were so easy to talk to. I loved those patrols, making you laugh and making sickle bets, but it drove me mad that I couldn't do it as me, that for some unknown reason you hated me as me."

"I didn't."

"I found that out a bit too late," James said. Lily looked over at him. She had liked him for nearly two years now, had liked the way he made her laugh, the way he cared so much about Quidditch, Transfiguration, and his friends. She had liked his intensity and the way he couldn't be distracted when he was in the middle of figuring out a solution to a problem. She had loved and been horrified by the way he attracted loyalty and admiration from so many, first to seventh years and beyond. She had hated the way he treated his enemies and knew how special he was. But most of all, she had hated that he could always make her like him again, the way he could make anyone like him if he was just his own fun-loving, intelligent self.

"Are you mad at Sirius for not telling you?" James asked. Lily turned her mind toward her memories of Sirius. He was a fairly new friend to her but his intensity made the lack of time seem less important. He had written her a F.A.D. note, eaten dinner with Gertrude and her, let her flick him, and held her up as she cried in the dungeons.

"No, I'm not really mad at him," Lily said, thinking about what Gertrude had said and then Christine's confusion about why she would be mad at Sirius in the first place. "I was. A lot. But you’re his best mate. He was just trying to help you."

"He thought it was the best way to go about making us friends," James said. "He was trying to be loyal to you too, in his way."

Wasn't it nice that he thought so, too? "I know. He's an idiot, but I believe he thought he was doing the right thing. He probably didn't think it would hurt us."

"No, I'm sure he didn't," James said. He held his broom out before him and spent a while looking at it. "You remember that night in fifth year when you barged in on all of us?"

"No?" Lily said, thrown by the change in topic.

"It was a month before O.W.L.s. You snuck past all of the wards we put up. We checked, they weren't broken, but you'd bypassed them. You barreled into our room as we were working and suddenly someone was cursing the door."

She couldn't contain her laugh. "That's right. I was trying to avoid-- was it Tracy? You all looked like you thought the castle was being attacked."

James asked, "Were you playing the Game?"

Lily nodded. "And losing. I really am horrible at that game."

"You looked so happy that night. Like you were about to burst with it."

They'd looked so alarmed by her. "It was amusing."

"I decided right then that I wanted to make you look like that again."

Lily looked away, embarrassed.

"Anyway," James said. "It turns out you like seventy-five percent of the male half of the Gryffindor sixth years."

"Peter _has_ grown on me," Lily said. James tipped his head back, grinning. "Can we still use our codenames, poppet?"

James laughed. Actually laughed. It simultaneously made Lily glow and broke her heart. She'd been waiting years to make him laugh, but now that she heard his laughter, she realized it was the laugh she should have recognized on her patrols. How stupid had she been?

"You still saunter," Lily said after a pause.

"And you've perfected the lost art of meandering," James replied. Their smiles were half mirth, half melancholy, tinged by layers of frustration.

"You know, there were a lot of clues I feel idiotic about missing," Lily said.

"Me too," James agreed. "Thinking about our conversations makes me feel very slow."

"I'm interested to know what you thought Sirius was talking about with all those Sputnik references and making me sit by you all the bloody time."

"The sitting by me thing?" James shook his head. "I thought he was doing it to harass me."

"I suppose there was that benefit too." Lily realized what Sirius meant by finding them amusing. "He's a mean bugger."

"And I thought Sputnik was Matt."

Lily still couldn’t believe it. "Ridiculous."

"You told me you liked a bloke that was dating your best friend," James said, shaking a finger at her, "and the only one of your friends dating anyone was Christine."

"Well, sure, if you didn't count the secret affair that I knew you were having with Tracy and hiding from everyone," Lily said. Yep, it sounded stupider and stupider each time she said it.

"Whether or not he was Sputnik," James said. "I wanted so to punch him when I saw you kiss him."

If he had been Remus, she would have taken his hand. "It was a sickle bet." 

"I know. I knew it then. I still wanted to punch him." Was it odd that his simple statement made Lily's heart ache? "And every time I saw him after I had 'put it together' that you liked him, I wanted to curse him," James continued. "I just kept remembering you telling me that he broke your heart and it made me want to beat him up."

Lily didn't want to talk about this. "Good thing you didn't."

"I yelled at him as me and then as Remus," James said. "I hope he doesn't hate Remus for that."

"He told me to tell Remus that he understood," Lily said, remembering the words she had not conveyed from the Great Meltdown patrol but not daring to mention that Matt now knew about the Polyjuice scam.

"Oh. Good."

"Yeah, good," Lily repeated as silence overcame the two of them again. Silence as they stood side by side in the middle of the Quidditch pitch and wanted to be nowhere else, with no one else.

"I never meant to break your heart," James finally said.

"And I never meant to hurt you," Lily said, embarrassed by how vulnerable she felt at the moment, "but it happened."

"It shouldn't have," James replied, and her embarrassment ebbed a bit.

"I hurt you just as much as, if not more than, you hurt me," Lily admitted. "You thought I was a snobby know-it-all who thought you weren't good enough for me. You thought I hated you and I only reinforced that idea by yelling at you. I was pretty wretched in this whole thing."

"I probably deserved it," James said, looking at her with such sincerity and pleasure that Lily wanted to melt into that look. "I went on patrol with you and I learned a lot about you."

"I don't mean to be snooty."

"You're not. You're amazing."

"I’m lucky a lot.”

"You don't even understand how happy it makes me that I knew you were going to deny that. Yes, I really messed up with this plan, but I don't regret it that much. I got to know you. For instance, I know that you probably read the secret admirer note I wrote you for F.A.D. and brushed it off as a prank."

Her brows drew together. "You wrote that? I thought it was a prefect that had to."

"See?" 

Lily looked at her hands. It was unsettling, James knowing her so intimately when she'd believed him a stranger.

"I know you have sister that you feel bad for disliking. I know that you don't write your parents very often and they don't write you, but when you go home you all pretend to know everything about one another. I know that you speak fluent Spanish and reject the idea of translation spells." James' eyes were focused on her and Lily felt deeply uncomfortable and she laughed a bit. "I know that you laugh when you're uncomfortable and blink a lot to avoid crying. You don't believe in hate or evil and you can melt a suit of armor with the force of your blaster curse."

Lily looked over, ready to remind him that they didn't know each other very well, but when she looked into those amber eyes, she saw what she had been trying to forget: Truth or Dare games and sickle bets through corridors; rock skipping in the middle of the night; being dragged behind a suit of armor and tackling Filch; teaching him how to walk like the characters in the Wizard of Oz; hearing him admit that he had been terrified as he worked to un-stick Tom from that stairs; admitting that her chest still hurt; and laughing, laughing like there was no Voldemort, laughing as she had not done since she was a little girl and first learned how to pump her legs on a swing, laughing and letting it echo through the corridors and stick to the walls. In those amber eyes Lily had found her place in the wizarding world and reconciled the change in her life.

"I wanted so much for that Remus to like me," Lily said, "that Remus who skived off duty and made sickle bets and adored Will McGrath. Who played games in the corridors and didn’t care about catching students because we were too caught up in each other. I thought that after two years, I might finally be able to forget about you and move on with him. And to find out that you and he are one in the same, to find that I have liked you again, and that you really are as wonderful as I never dared to believe you actually were-- it's hard."

"It was still me," James said.

"I know." Lily took a deep breath, dragging her eyes up to the star filled sky. "Well, actually, I don't know. I think that's the problem. I like you, but I don't trust you right now. Not like I should. I don't trust that you like me and that I can tell you the things I'd have told Remus."

James scrubbed his hand over his face. "How can I fix that?"

"I don't know," Lily said. "Maybe we should just wait to figure that out the next time we see each other."

"After our exams tomorrow?"

"In September, I suppose," Lily said, trying to gauge his reaction.

"September?" James's hands dropped to his side, broom smacking the ground. "That's months away."

"I know."

"Why in the world would we wait to figure this out until September?"

"Why wouldn't we?" Lily asked. "Are we going to visit one another over the holiday? Send long letters?"

"Why not? I can Apparate now. I can come and see you."

"But if we don't take this time to be apart, I'll always wonder if I forced myself on you and if we weren't just glad to finally have tricked each other into dating us."

"That's idiotic. I wasn't tricked. I've liked you for two years."

"I want to believe you, I just don't yet," Lily said, hating that it was true. "That's the problem. I don't believe that you really know me as anything more than a girl who turned you down a lot and was eventually won over."

"Obviously you're more than that. Didn't I just give a speech about how much more?"

"I can't help how I feel. I like you, but I don't believe you really like me, like me enough to give me the holiday."

He turned away in frustration. "This is still idiotic."

"If you come back from the holiday and you realize you don't want to date me--"

"Of course I want to date you!" He turned back to her.

Lily shook her head. "I know it's a lot to ask you to wait, and you can date other girls in the meantime." That hurt to say.

"I'm not going to date anyone else if I have the chance to finally be with you," James said, his voice loud in the empty pitch.

"I just feel stupid for trusting Remus," Lily finally said. "I trusted him to hear all of my secrets and be my friend. I trusted Sirius with my secret crush on you. I trusted Sam and Tracy to look out for me, and none of my trust was warranted. So how am I supposed to trust you to keep liking me after all that?"

James reached out and pulled her as close to him as he decently could. Then he surprised her by remaining like that, hugging her. James held her and comforted her as a few stray tears ran down her face and her embarrassment ebbed only slightly.

"You must think I'm so stupid," Lily mumbled.

James shook his head. "I think you're fabrilliant."

"We'll see about that in September," Lily whispered.

James nodded and tilted her head up as he said, "You will."

She blinked up at him and felt pretty foolish for not trusting this bloke in front of her. He leaned down slowly and pressed his lips against Lily's. Her arms, stuck between them, grabbed at the front of his shirt and pulled them even closer as their lips began to move against one another.

It was a messy kiss, brought about by emotions that neither really could control, and when they pulled apart and found Lily's tears on both of their cheeks, neither cared. Lily laid her forehead on his shoulder to catch her breath and James kissed his way gently down her neck, sending shivers of pleasure through her before he pulled away and they stood staring at one another.

"If you don't want this--" Lily began, but James's laughter made her stop. She looked down at his chest to avoid staring at his lips.

"I will," he announced.

"If you don't, though, in September, it'll be okay."

"Yeah, okay," James mumbled, reaching out and trailing his left hand up and down her side. And damn but she loved that feeling.

"I just need to believe that you're the bloke I patrolled with. I need to know that you actually like me. And I know that sounds odd, but I just can't fathom the reason why you would really like me and I just need some time," Lily explained, trying to convince her body not to launch itself at James and snog him senseless. That hand was doing amazing things to her senses. And when he pulled it away she wanted nothing more than to grab his hand and drag it back toward her.

"I'll convince you," James whispered.

"Well, you are a pretty stubborn bugger," Lily quipped, smiling. He smirked and nodded.

"And a snivelling toerag," James added. Lily laughed a little.

"It's okay, I think I'm too good for you," Lily returned, trying to joke though there was still a dull ache in her heart when she thought about his words. She wondered if he felt the same, so she said, "I never thought you were a snivelling toerag. I just liked you so much and I hated that you were hurting someone and I didn't know what to do about it."

"Insulting me was a good plan to win me over," James joked and Lily smiled, "but my method's a bit more complex. I insult and shame people in public if I like them."

"So you're pretty much in love with Snape?"

"Ew." James pulled a face. "Girl. When I like a girl."

"Good to know," Lily said. She looked at him, this bloke of sixteen for whom she had just fallen so quickly, and shook her head. "I better get back to bed. Arithmancy exam tomorrow and all. You coming?"

"To your bed?" he asked. Lily smiled a half smile, and he smiled back at her, so open and sincere. He shook his head. "No, I want to fly some more."

"You sure? It's pretty late."

"To fly? Don't be stupid," James answered, smiling. "It's never too late to fly." And with that he kicked off the ground and rose and rose until he was nearly a dot in sky. 

 

 

**~*~*~**

 

Lily slept well that night, wrapped in her comforter. She went to her Arithmancy P.N.E.W.T. the next day and left feeling like she definitely needed another year to study the material. Or at least a bit of studying, which she hadn't done. She talked to a few friends as she made her way back to the common room, where she found many students lounging around in the glory of being done with their exams, and two or three sixth years still looking at books since they must have had one or two more practice N.E.W.T.s, including Christine McGrath, who caught her eye, pointed to the boy's dormitory and raised an eyebrow questioning Lily. Lily smiled and nodded, heading in that direction.

She climbed the stairs to their dorm, knocked on the door, and heard a surprised voice call out for her to wake a second. Then there was a lot of scrambling noises that worried her before the door opened to reveal a very composed Peter Pettigrew.

"Oh, hi," he said. He looked at her a moment longer, as if confused by her presence. "James isn't here."

"I'm looking for Sirius, actually," Lily said.

"I'm like a directory to you, aren't I?" Peter asked, though he also sounded a bit confused by her request to see Sirius.

"Someday, I'll ask to see you."

"I can only wait with bated breath," Peter deadpanned, opening the door wider and motion to the back left bed. Lily decided that she may be 100% for liking the Marauders. "He's studying over there. Oy, Sirius! Lily's here to see you."

She crossed the room as Sirius put down his Ancient Runes text and looked up at her. She gave a half wave and he stood to greet her.

"Hi," Lily said, looking at his little living area. It was impeccably clean. Almost disturbingly so.

"Hello," he said, sitting on the edge of his bed and regarding her.

Lily sat down on the chair beside his bed and they were at eye level. She watched him for a moment, sitting there with his arms crossed over his chest. Unlike James, who always attracted people like a magnet, Sirius exuded a sense of confidence that suggested he didn’t need anyone to join him.

"You have any small fruits on you that I ought to watch out for?" Sirius asked.

Lily smiled. “Only if you make me mad again."

"You may have irreparably damaged my reputation," Sirius said, shaking his head slightly at her. "People will start to call me Grape Kid behind my back."

"They were already calling you that, Sirius," Lily said, "but you don't want to know why."

Sirius tilted his head. "That's hardly a very creative jibe."

"More creative than Snivellis?" Lily asked, crossing her legs.

Sirius smirked and inclined his head. "Point taken."

He was a terribly refined bloke of seventeen with his straight hair and strong jaw. He had prominent cheekbones and a dark complexion. He looked a bit like James, like they were cousins, if not brothers. But Sirius was more patient than James. He waited for her to explain her reason for coming to him.

"I talked to James," Lily said.

"Did that go well?"

"I'm sure he told you all about it.”

Sirius shrugged. "I can't deny it."

Lily played with her fingers. "I don't want you to. You're best friends. You should tell each other everything."

Sirius' eyes narrowed as he considered her and his mouth twitch up on the left edge. "You're forgiving me?"

"There's nothing to forgive," Lily said, though it was difficult. It still hurt, but what Christine had said was true: Sirius's loyalty ought to be with his friend. And Gertrude was right too, Lily had been willing to forgive Sirius from the start, from the moment he arrived in the dungeons trying to convince her to go up and talk to James. He had irritated her, pushed her buttons, smirked when he shouldn't have, but he wasn't malicious.

"I'm sorry nonetheless," Sirius said, sounding as proper and sincere as Lily had ever heard him. She decided it was rather disturbing and changed the subject.

"I received an interesting letter a while ago," Lily said, pulling Tracy's letter from her pocket and playing with it in her fingers for a moment.

"From whom?"

"Tracy," Lily said, holding it out for him to take, which he did. His curiosity always surprised Lily. They spent another couple of minutes in silence as Lily let herself relax and Sirius laughed aloud as he read Tracy's letter.

"That's a terrible apology letter," Sirius said once he had finished, looking at Lily with his strong blue eyes. She was glad to find someone else agreed that the letter wasn't very moving.

"It's not really an apology note."

"It does seems to lack an actual apology," Sirius said, handing it back.

Lily looked down at the parchment. "She's really angry about the whole thing."

"Angry with you?" Sirius asked. Lily nodded. "Girls are so peculiar."

"That we are.” She rolled up the parchment, tossed it in the air, and incinerated it.

Sirius's eyes widened. "Memorized it, did you?"

"No, I needed to destroy it before I did just that," Lily said, vanishing the ashes. "Sometimes you have to let the past burn away, you know?"

Sirius looked at her for a long moment, and when Lily turned to him he had a questioning, appreciative look in his eyes that his words tried to override when he said, "I actually believe in lighting all non-essential things on fire: old books, exams, Remus's pillow, Snivellis, the Arithmancy classroom--"

"The Great Hall," Lily suggested, explaining, "It makes the students lazy if they don't have to hunt down their food."

"Exactly," Sirius said, nodding. "And McGonagall's robes because let's be honest, there's got to be a hot body under there." Lily laughed, incredulous and slightly disgusted by that train of thought. Sirius looked proud to have embarrassed her.

"Mrs. Norris," Lily said, once her amusement faded. "That cat needs to be dropped off a tower and then lit on fire, but the principle's the same."

Sirius nodded. "Indeed."

And so Sirius Black and Lily Evans decided that they did not need to talk about what had transpired ever again. They had no need to hash out blame. Instead, they listed more things to burn (the Sorting Hat; "That'd be the best Sorting ever") and things that should never be burned (the Kitchens and the secret passages). As had been and would always be their way together, they ignored the glaring mistakes in their lives and chose to laugh together, forgive and forget without discussion. It was their gift to one another: one easy unquestionable friendship.

"Oh," Lily said after they had decided that house-elves should never be lit up, though it would be terribly interesting to see how Dumbledore reacted to his robes catching on fire. "I almost forgot. Will you be my date to my sister's wedding?"

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "What about James?"

"I’m giving him the holiday to reconsider dating me," Lily said, tucking her left foot under her right leg and leaning back against the chair.

"Are you joking?"

"James didn't tell you?"

"He did, but I scoffed at the idea," he said, waving a dismissive hand at her.

"Only you would admit to scoffing.”

"It's a scoff-worthy idea.”

"We're a very unconventional pair," Lily said, thinking of James and all of the time in front of them. It was daunting, but necessary. She knew that. She did. It was just difficult to accept the reality of not seeing him all holiday.

"Well, I never doubted that you two were different," Sirius said, looking exasperated with the idea that his two friends weren't dating. Lily found it amusing.

"So my sister's wedding?" she asked, refocusing the conversation. "It's in mid-August."

Sirius smiled. "James'll kill me."

"You may be the only person he wouldn't _actually_ kill," Lily said, trying to sound encouraging.

Sirius pointed at her accusingly. "You sure this isn't part of your 'snog Sirius and kill two birds with one stone' plan?"

Lily laughed, remembering saying those heated words to James a month before. "You two really tell each other everything, don't you?"

"Only insofar as stalking you is concerned." Sirius leaned against the armrest.

"Glad to know there are boundaries."

"So you don't expect this wedding to cause any problems?" Sirius asked.

"If it would cause problems," Lily said, "I wouldn't ask you." She valued a friendship like James and Sirius's too much to do that to them. Nothing should ever come between that strong a bond, especially not a girl.

Sirius smiled. "Then I'll be your date."

Lily smiled too. "Good." She moved to stand and leave, but stayed seated when she thought to ask Sirius, "You and James are okay, right?"

"Like two peas in a pod," Sirius said easily. "Or as McGonagall said yesterday, like two juveniles determined to end up in adjacent cells in Azkaban before we're thirty."

Lily laughed. "She obviously doesn't understand that your real goal is to share a cell with her and James in St. Mungo's special ward."

"Aw, don't be jealous," Sirius said, patting her hand, "you're the craziest of us all, I'm sure you'll have the padded room down the hall."

"Would it be pink?" Lily asked, clutching his arm as if with excitement.

"If it is, I'm not visiting," Sirius said, raising his chin in the air. "And I'll stop James too."

"But McGonagall could visit, right? That's what's important."

Sirius laughed. "Oh, yes, you'll do."

"Thanks for your approval," Lily said.

"I'm glad you came around, I had an elaborate plan to make you to talk to me before the end of term, now I'll have to use it on your birthday," Sirius said. Lily smiled and agreed that he should before saying her goodbyes.

"I think you're fabulous, Sirius, for looking out for James like you do," Lily said.

Sirius tossed his head and smirked. "I know."

Lily laughed and left. As the door shut behind her, she heard Peter call across the room, "You better not steal Prongs's girl, mate."

"Nah, she's his," Sirius replied, "and I'm insanely glad for it."

 

**~*~*~**

 

Lily's final practice N.E.W.T. finished at three in the afternoon. And it felt amazing. Sure, Lily was confident that she had failed all of her exams, but come on! Who didn't fail these practices that they took a year too soon? They had little actual purpose except to convince students that they were complete idiots and needed to study a lot more. Well, that was fine, but this was a beautiful June day and she planned to spend it outside.

"Miss Evans?" Professor Dumbledore was standing at the doorway of the exam as she entered the corridor. Lily turned toward him, trying to keep her face from cringing. Professor Dumbledore did not exactly jive with her outdoors-until-she-was-burned-so-red-she-needed-a-potion-to-move plan.

"Yes?" Lily asked, walking toward him as the students began to run toward the main doors and the elusive sunshine.

"Please come with me," the headmaster said, motion with his hand. Why would he want to talk to her? Behind him, she saw Professor Carpenter and put two and two together. The professor was obviously ridiculous strict.

"If this is about the Muggle Studies project," Lily said as the last of the students from her Arithmancy class tinkled out of the class, "James hasn't asked me about what I miss or anything yet."

"This is not about Muggle Studies," Professor Dumbledore said as Carpenter turned a corner and disappeared. Lily resigned herself to the fact that she would not be going outside and fell into step beside the aging headmaster. "Madam Pomfrey wanted one final check up before you left for the holidays."

Well, that explanation made no sense. Why would the headmaster escort her to the infirmary? Why wouldn't Pomfrey have just send Lily a note or have a house-elf bring her or do anything other than ask the most important person in the castle to do such a menial task?

"And you had to escort me?" Lily asked, then realized how blatantly rude that must have sounded. Well, damn, she'd been horribly disrespectful to Dumbledore all year, why not at least remain consistent?

"I also wanted to ask you how your year went," Dumbledore said.

"It was fine," Lily said automatically, her manners saving her from thinking about the response. Or at least saving her until Dumbledore went on.

"Any reason in particular?" Oh, he was a clever one, not mentioning anything specific about the Ball. He wasn't pressuring her, but still her mind was buzzing through her memories of the year to find an appropriate response. She certainly knew that she could talk about a multitude of things - James and the Polyjuice, Remus the werewolf, basically not studying at all for these pointless exams that did not effect her marks, playing the Game, or even her prefect duties and Friendship Appreciation Day - but what did she really want to discuss with her headmaster? Nothing. Not really.

"Do you have any chocolate?" Lily asked, definitely changing the subject and not caring. She thought he would shake his head, no. Or she thought he might even smile. She had not expected him to reach into his robe pocket and pull out a bar of Huneyduke's finest.

"I always have chocolate," the headmaster replied, handing her the bar.

"Are you joking?" Lily asked, staring at the chocolate with admiration. "This is amazing. I'm going to write the chocolate frog people and insist they add, 'Could be mistaken for a candy store,' onto your card!"

"You wouldn't be the first," he replied, pushing open the door to the Hospital Wing and holding it open for Lily to pass through. "Sirius Black is very insistent that it be known that I have an extensive, exclusive relationship with Professor McGonagall."

Lily choked on her bite of chocolate. Coughing, she couldn't breathe until she spit the piece out into her hand and looked down at the disgusting glob.

" _Scourgify_ ," Professor Dumbledore said, helpfully vanishing the mess.

"Sorry about that," Lily said, still coughing. "So, you and Professor McGonagall are dating?"

"No," Dumbledore replied, smiling at the approaching nurse.

"No? Then--" Lily cut herself off. "Why did I believe anything Sirius would say?"

"Miss Evans, how are you feeling?" Madam Pomfrey began. Lily, used to this painfully boring process, answered her questions mechanically, knowing that her chest pain would take a bit longer to heal.

"Headmaster, there is a woman here to see you," Professor McGonagall announced, entering the room as Pomfrey poked Lily's lower ribs with her wand.

"Ow!" Lily yelled, slapping the wand away.

"Miss Evans, I cannot properly help you if you don't let me examine you."

"Fine, exam me. Don't poke me." Lily crossed her arms around her middle protectively. Who did this woman think she was? To distract herself as the woman pulled her arms apart and began 'examining' Lily again, Lily watched Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore talk. Lily started silently chuckling, watching them, thinking of Sirius.

She stopped laughing when a woman with five moles on one eyelid entered the Infirmary and curtsied at Professor Dumbledore.

"You!" Lily called out, twisting away from Madam Pomfrey and running toward the door, where Professor Dumbledore and the woman had stopped to watch her.

"Miss Evans, I would like to introduce you to--" the headmaster began.

"We've met," interrupted moley woman.

"Ah, I rather thought you might have," Dumbledore replied, his eyes doing that weird twinkling thing that Lily found so odd.

"But you disappeared-- like fruit!" Lily stuttered, unheeding the other people in the room and their reactions. "What are you doing here?"

"Meeting Albus." Her German accent was still thick. And those disgusting moles were still sitting there.

"You grabbed my arm in the Leaky Cauldron and accosted me at the Ministry, and I think you talked to Gertrude Wrightman about me too. Who are you? What do you want with me?" Lily asked.

Moley blinked. "I'm not here for you."

"Well, that's too bad because I'm here to talk to you," Lily said, narrowing her eyes and hardening her resolve. She would receive answers.

"Miss Evans!" Professor McGonagall reprimanded her. "This woman deserves your respect. You will address with politely as--"

"I'm sorry, professor," Lily said, talking to Professor McGonagall though she did not take her eyes from the mole woman; she couldn't risk her disappearing again, not when Lily was so close to her answers.

"Perhaps you two would like to speak privately?" Professor Dumbledore suggested. Lily didn't care, but the woman nodded.

"For a moment," she agreed, and before Lily knew it the Infirmary was cleared of other people. It was just Lily and the woman's whose eyes had once flashed orange. Lily could distantly hear Pomfrey complaining. Lily stood staring at this woman: the disappearing, heir-speaking woman.

"What do you want?" Lily asked.

The short, round woman said, "You have a choice."

"You said you weren't here for me," Lily said.

"But you've found me." The woman took pains to maintain Lily's intense stare, though she looked terrible strained. "So I offer you a choice I only offered one other."

"Oh, good to know I'm not unique," snapped Lily. She felt irrationally terrified of this woman and that put Lily on edge.

"You must choose now," Mole Woman said.

"Choose what?"

"Your path."

"Okay, the cryptic message doesn't work for me. I've heard others talking like that. Is it a Pure-blood thing?" Lily asked, thinking of Sirius and Gertrude and the way they always spoke to one another like they assumed the other person knew background information without introduction.

The woman's look turned suddenly shaky. "You could have a long life with family. Safety."

"Neat. I accept."  

"But you must leave." Her voice sounded strained as well, like it was an effort to communicate these broken thoughts with Lily.

"Leave what?" Lily asked. "Leave Hogwarts?"

"Leave England, leave magic, leave with family."

"Did Petunia bribe you into coming here?" 

The woman's gaze hardened again. "Voldemort kills Mudbloods. Kills you if you don't run."

"He won't," Lily said, scared despite herself as she remembered those hooded figures coming to attack the people around her. "I'll survive."

"You are tangled." Seriously, this cryptic business was annoying Lily to no end. What sort of person spoke like this? "I cannot see the future. My gift is to see the eternal ties, the ones beternal people. The Black family heir and you. The Old Family heirs." The woman took a shaky breath. "The world. Leave, break the ties, and he will be free, free of your overwhelming influence."

“They might not want to be free of me.” Lily thought of Gertrude and the deal they had made, of the fact that Gertrude had challenged her to stay and convince her that being right didn't necessitate being suicidal or stupid.

"You will not leave," the woman said as if it were a certain truth she had just realized. "Love pulls you."

"You don't know me."

"No," the woman said, her eyes flashing that orange color again. "You are tied to everyone. Tied to me. I have never seen the like. I don't know what will happen, but you will drag people with you by your ties. I don't understand."

"Oh, good to know. I don't understand either," Lily snapped. Mole woman's eyes returned to normal and she turned to leave the Infirmary.

And Lily let her leave without saying another word, let Professor Dumbledore walk off talking to that woman, let Professor McGonagall talk to her about her responsibility as a Hogwarts student to demonstrate the group's beliefs, let Pomfrey poke her some more. She endured it all in silence, the silence of anger and frustration, the silence of choice.

Lily could have, at any moment, taken this woman's offer: run away and been safe, severed the ties that bound her to others. Every day of every year of Lily's life, running away was an option-- a safe, secure option. But she was right to ask about the cost of running, because it would have cost her those links. It would have cost her Sirius Black and Gertrude Wrightman and, though the woman did not mention it, the strongest tie of all, the tie that bound Lily Evans to James Potter, the tie that remained through patrols and potions and broken promises, the tie that bound them as he flew among stars and she played the Game in deserted corridors.

Yes, running might have been an option every day, but it was never a choice for Lily Evans.


	23. The Places You Never Thought Life Would Take You

As they had the year before, the prefects held a party to thank and say goodbye to the two Heads, Matt McGrath and Diana Halbur. But unlike last year when Cleo dispensed hugs and people chatted amiably, this year people were more inclined to drink as many champagne flutes as they could in order to forget that they hated most of their fellow prefects. So far, Lily had managed to hug and say goodbye to both Jenna and Jodie, the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff prefects, without laughing or smashing a bottle over their heads. She was really quite proud of herself.

Christine handed Lily a third shot of fire whiskey after Jenna giggled about a boy and ran off to find Gregory something or other.

"You're not a prefect," Lily said to Christine, taking the shot and loving that she was unable to taste it. That meant good things for the rest of the five-hour train ride.

"No. Wait. Shhhh," Christine replied, taking the shot glass back from Lily. "I'm being tricky."

Lily laughed and shook her head. "I enjoy you."

Christine smiled.

"Could you find me a large glass of water, please?" Lily asked, scanning the room and not seeing any water.

"Why?"

"I think I've drank too much," Lily replied. Petunia had taught her to drink lots of water whenever she had alcohol. Christine nodded and summoned Lily a glass from a passing fifth year.

"Here."

"I can't take that. That's his." Lily pointed to the fifth year.

"It's all right," the bloke said. "I'll find another." He walked away before Lily could protest, so she took the glass and gave Christine a look. She shrugged in response.

"Where's Matt?" Lily asked, looking around for the Head Boy as she drank the all of the water in the glass.

"He's in there with Diana," Christine said, pointing to the particularly small compartment off of the main prefect one. Lily looked over at Christine. Was Christine anxious about that? Her boyfriend was in a small room with another girl. Then again, she was Christine; she wouldn't care. And he was Matt McGrath. He wouldn't cheat.

"Aren't you worried about them being in their together?" Lily asked, pointing with her empty glass at the closed door.

Christine shrugged and looked away before saying, "He's not my boyfriend."

Well, obviously Christine was nervous about the whole thing, but being Christine, she wouldn't admit it. Well, Lily would fix that. She walked right over to that door and knocked. When it slid open, Matt was standing there looking very disgruntled, but whether he looked that way because Lily had interrupted or because he was spending time with Diana, Lily didn't know.

Or she didn't know until his eyes landed on Christine and his whole face lit up as he smiled. Christine smiled back, looking oddly proud. Lily felt proud of herself right then, too.

"Matt, we still need to discuss--" Diana said, appearing behind him.

"Nothing," Matt replied, twisting around with that smile still on his face. "We only have five more hours on this train. Let's have fun, Diana."

"I suppose you're right," Diana replied, smiling a tight smile. Matt gave her a hug, said goodbye, and then walked over to Christine. He placed a hand on her lower back, leading her away. Lily smiled at Diana and also tried to leave, but Diana quickly walked forward and cut her off.

"Do you hate me?" Diana hissed.

"What?" Lily asked, almost dropping her glass out of shock. Where had that come from?

"Because if you don't hate me, I don't understand why you've done these things," Diana pressed, waving her hand widely around as if Lily had made the universe against Diana's distinct wishes.

"What? What things? I don't hate you."

"Then are you simply malicious?" Diana asked and -- _uh oh_ \-- she had tears in her eyes. How was Lily supposed to deal with that? "You undermined me at meetings, you were blatantly rude and disrespectful to me when I spoke, you didn't participate, you asked to leave and not to have to attend meetings, and then, out of meetings, just as Matt and I were getting closer, you came along and-- why did you do all this?"

Lily looked at Diana in shock. What? Lily hadn't meant to do any of those things. Well, okay, she could understand how Diana would think that Lily's intention was to hurt her, but she hadn't been trying to spite Diana. Honestly. She just hated meetings. She told her so.

"Then is it just that you wanted to make my job harder?" Diana asked. "Or that you just wanted to ruin my last year in general? I really liked Matt and we were coming together when you forced Christine to kiss him in the corridor in front of me."

Lily could only stand gaping at this girl, horrified. Diana had liked Matt? Matt McGrath? And she thought Lily had shoved him together with Christine to spite her?

"He and Christine have been dating since New Year's Eve," Lily said, feeling badly despite the fact that she knew she'd done nothing wrong.

"What?" Diana whispered, shaking her head and staring out at the trees. She summoned herself a bottle of champagne and turned to leave. "I hope, whoever the Head Girl is next year, that you treat her with more respect that you did me."

Lily watched Diana walk away, feeling humiliated, embarrassed, and ashamed. It was official: Lily was a horrible human being.

"Is something the matter?" Gertrude asked, walking over and watching Diana's retreating back.

"Oh, no. Diana thinks I created the universe in order to spite her, but generally no, nothing's wrong." Lily leaned her head against the wall and began pounding it against it.

"Stop that," Gertrude said, looking disturbed and a bit affronted.

Lily rested her head against the wall and opened one of her eyes slightly. "Should you even be talking to me right now?"

"Perhaps not. It isn't proper, but I'm now a seventh year," Gertrude replied, taking a sip from her champagne flute. She held the crystal lightly in her right hand. She obviously belonged at a cocktail party.

"And an heir," Lily added bitterly. "Which means you're untouchable, apparently."

Gertrude looked across the room, over the heads of the students. To a casual observer, it probably it looked like Gertrude and Lily were simply standing next to one another, not talking.

"Do you know what being an heir really means, Lily?"

"You get to act snooty?" Lily guessed, still upset by Diana's accusations and deciding to take her frustrations out on Gertrude who seemed like an emotional black hole, absorbing all emotions and showing none.

"Not even necessarily the heir to one of the seven families, but the heir to a proud family," Gertrude continued, ignoring Lily's comment and proving Lily's black hole theory.

"My answer is still the same."

"It means responsibility," Gertrude said. Lily spotted Matt across the room smiling at Christine. "It entails an obligation to protect your family, honor them, and remain loyal to them. It is the reason why Samantha Caldwell has chosen to avoid this war and why Kevin Creggie is top of our year in Defense and why Timothy Bones has an apprenticeship with the Ministry this holiday."

Lily looked across the room at Tim and Kevin, two blokes with whom she was fairly friendly. It was odd to think of Gertrude knowing them.

"In certain circles," Gertrude continued, "it also means instant respect."

"People instantly respect Sirius?" Lily asked, thinking of her good-looking friend.

"People used to," Gertrude said, and her voice was as close to sad as Lily had ever heard.

"And you?" Lily asked. They'd never talked about this subject before.

"My house knows who I am," Gertrude said, and Lily knew the blonde Slytherin was telling Lily that she was untouchable and respected a great deal by her house. But, Lily wondered, if Gertrude was siding with Dumbledore, how long would that respect last? Would the prestige of an old family heir overcome the taint of war?

Looking at Gertrude, Lily believed it would.

"I need more water," Lily said, shaking her empty glass.

"Lily!" Kevin exclaimed, running over and hugging Lily. The water would have to wait. An heir was in her presence.

 

 

**~*~*~**

But Lily soon decided to leave the prefect compartment and wander down the train in search of Sam. Lily thought they needed to talk again. Lily needed to tell her that she understood that she was an heir. Yep, that was Lily plan until someone grabbed her arm when she bounced against a wall. She turned to thank them for keeping her upright.

"Thank you, Peter Pettigrew," Lily greeted, smiling. He was an adorable boy, even if she couldn't imagine someone actually dating him.

"You're welcome, Lily Evans." He was smiling at her, eyes sparkling with humor. "A little tipsy, are you?"

Lily saw Snape was walking down the other end of the train and she called out, "I hate you!"

Peter turned to see who she was talking about and laughed when he saw Snape glaring. Lily turned to Peter.

"I do hate him," Lily insisted. "He's mean to me for absolutely no reason. What've I ever done to him? Did I make someone kiss the girl he liked? Did I undermine him at prefect meetings? No. No, I did not."

Peter looked confused. "I think I ought to take you--"

"I want to go to the loo," Lily announced, pulling away from Peter and moving further down the train. Peter slid the door behind him open.

"Sirius," Peter called so quietly that Lily would not have heard him if she hadn't had just simply amazing hearing. She spun around so fast that she had to take a single step forward to balance. "Lily's drunk."

Sirius peaked his grinning head out of the compartment and almost laughed when he saw Lily glaring at him.

"Hello friend," Lily said, straightening her back.

"Hello to you too. How're you doing?" Sirius asked, stepping out of the compartment and leaning against the wall opposite her. Peter smiled too.

"I would be fabulous if I could find Sam and the loo," Lily said, choosing to be mature and not hex him for looking so stuffed up.

"That's an odd combination," Peter noted.

"I have to pee and I have to tell her that I know she's an heir-- oh! So are you, Sirius." Lily waved a hand in his general direction. "Actually, where's James?"

"You want him to take advantage of you while you're in this state?" Sirius suggested, winking. If Lily thought she could have done it without looking stupid, she would have flicked him.

"No," she said condescendingly. "I just want to talk to him."

"It's because she thinks he's fabulous," Peter stage-whispered to Sirius.

"I thought _I_ was fabulous," Sirius complained, looking at Peter and then Lily with a frown on his face.

"She did say that," Peter said, nodding. Lily wanted to flick him too. "And everyone's saying you're dating one another since she came running up to our dorm looking for you. You better watch out, Sirius. She's trying to cheat on you."

"And with my best friend of all people," Sirius said, shaking his head sadly.

"I don't think either of you is funny," Lily said, waving her hand dismissively at them.

"So James isn't fabulous?" Sirius asked.

"He is," Lily said, sighing as she let her hand fall to her side. "You too, but he's just... different. Special, you know?"

"Why do you always tell _me_ these things about James?" Sirius asked. He was joking. Maybe. Lily didn't really know. He could have been honestly asking her. "Why don't you tell him?"

"Because it would inflate his already too big ego," Lily replied, then stopped, thought about what she'd said, and reconsidered her opinion. "Or maybe not. Maybe he's really Remus. I don't know. I'm still really confused."

Sirius looked at her with his sharp gray eyes and looked quite sincere. "Yeah, I know."

"I don't know if I can trust him," Lily complained, feeling a wave of sadness that made her blink back tears. "Who is he?"

"He's James," Sirius answered softly. Peter looked like he felt as bad as Sirius, James, and Remus did about the Polyjuice idea.

"I know he is," Lily said, still blinking. "I know that. It's just I don't know that for sure yet. I don't believe that and I'm frustrated but I still like him and I think I have to just get over it, but I can't just forget. But I'll try. I'll try really hard."

"If I perform a Sobering Charm on you, are you going to feel stupid?" Sirius asked.

"No, I'm not going to feel stupid. I'd say all of this to you anyway."

"I'm actually quite sure you would, too," Sirius said. He began muttering the charm.

"Is James with a girl? Is that why he's not here?" Lily asked suddenly. "I told him he could be, but thinking about him with one makes me want to throw up."

"Trust me," Sirius said with that smirk on his face, "he's not with another girl."

He cast the charm and Lily didn't feel a significant difference.

"It's quite the party up in the prefect compartment," Lily said to fill the silence. Sirius laughed and Peter smiled.

"Still want to find James?" Sirius asked.

"Yes, but I'm not going to," Lily replied, looking him in the eye.

"Your drunken self was prepared to."

"I wasn't drunk," Lily said. "I hold my alcohol really well."

"You know, that's something I'd be perfectly willing to accept about you," Peter said.

Lily smiled and thanked him. "And now I'm off."

"To find James or the loo?" Sirius asked.

"The loo," Lily denied, turning down the corridor.

But if Lily Evans ever imagined Sirius Black could be quiet about her location, she would have been proven wrong when the door to the loo opened and James Potter walked in as Lily was washing her hands.

She stared at him for a moment, trying to collect her thoughts.

"You're in the girl's loo," she said at last.

"Yes. It's very nice in here," James noted, staring at her. She felt a blush creep up onto her cheeks. They couldn't take their eyes off one another. He looked so good. "Much nicer than the bloke's loo. I should write Dumbledore a strongly worded letter about that."

"Like Sirius's letters to the Chocolate Frog Company?" Lily asked.

"He told you about those?" James asked, smiling. His whole face lit up as he smiled and Lily wanted nothing more than to kiss him right then.

"No," Lily said, forcing her eyes to stay on his eyes instead of drifting to his lips. "Dumbledore did."

"Did he now?" James asked. He chuckled. "No wonder they never write Sirius back."

"Yep, no wonder." And then Lily became very aware of the fact that she was in the loo with James Potter. In a very small room in general with him.

"I don't want to just keep yelling at you and then kissing you," Lily said suddenly, maybe more to herself than him. James nodded across from her, a smile creeping across his face as he kept staring. Well, if he thought she'd be the first to look away he had another think coming.

"So," he began, "have a great holiday."

"That's what you came in here to say?" Lily asked, smiling despite her best efforts. Eyes twinkling, he shook his head.

"I hear you were drunk." He was definitely smirking. How irritating. How freaking attractive. He looked so good, standing there, arms crossed over his chest, smirking at her.

"I was a bit tipsy until that idiotic best friend of yours decided to remedy the situation."

"He is a bother sometimes," James agreed, nodding slowly as he took a step forward.

"But he's also fabulous," Lily said, taking her own step forward.

"So I hear." That smirk was just so freaking edible.

"Jealous?" Lily asked, tearing her eyes away from his mouth to look into his amused eyes.

"Of Sirius?" James asked, shaking his head. "I hear he's going to be your date at your sister's wedding."

"I needed someone to impress my sister's new in-laws." Lily scooted a little closer, close enough to reach out and touch him if she wanted. Close enough for him to touch her.

"Good choice." James's hand came and rested on her hip, sending tingles throughout the rest of her body. Frick that felt amazing and it was barely a touch. Lily fought the urge to close her eyes as he took another step forward.

"He'll charm the hell out of them all," Lily managed to say in an only-slightly-shaky voice. He laughed a deep laugh and came yet closer, nodding.

"Yes, he will," he said, leaning in to whisper in her ear. "Why didn't you ask me?"

His breath was doing amazing things to her ear. And then he was kissing her ear and she nearly melted against him, reaching out an arm and wrapping it around his neck to keep herself upright as he began kissing a trail down her cheek. She couldn't think properly. Didn't want to.

"I'm giving you the holiday to think," she whispered, twisting her head so that lips were right in front of hers.

"Right," he said skeptically, his lips barely removed from hers.

Lily laughed lightly, wanting so much to move forward just a fraction of an inch and let herself kiss this bloke she had liked for two years, the bloke she thought was funny and clever and amazing looking, the bloke with whom she belonged.

"I hear you thought I was with a girl," James said. Why wasn't he kissing her, pulling her closer? Why was he so close and not yet close enough?

"Yes, well, I'm stupid," Lily said, figuring she should just make the first move. She leaned in and he leaned back just as quickly, avoiding her kiss.

"No," James said, suddenly quite serious. "I heard what you said, Lily."

"What?" Lily asked, upset and ashamed as she stepped away from him, letting her arm fall to her side. She'd tried to kiss him and he'd leaned back-- oh, how embarrassing.

"I heard what you said about us," he repeated, not trying to move closer to her.

"I can't believe-- I feel like such an idiot, but you were kissing my cheek. I'm not insane, am I? You don't find me completely repulsive, right? I mean, if you don't want to kiss me, that's fine. Didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, but I obviously just launched myself at you and you backed--"

James groaned and grabbed her arm. "Lily, I want to kiss you so much that I'm literally biting my cheek to the point of bleeding to keep myself from attacking you," he said, and his voice was strained. James let go of her arm and placed his hand on her hip.

So she wasn't crazy. "But..."

"But I heard what you told Dumbledore about Carpenter and that project, about how you didn't know why I'd written what I had, and the night before about you not really knowing me," James said, eyes boring into hers. Lily could have gotten lost in those eyes. Who was she kidding? She's gotten lost in them years ago. "I know what you meant. We need to know each other as each other. You need to know that I'm me and that I know you."

"You're babbling nonsensically," Lily said. James laughed, smiling that endearing, heartbreaking, painful smile.

"We can't just kiss each other." At her look, he added, "Not that I don't want to, I do. And I know I sound like a poof, but I don't just want to kiss you until we're both sick of one another and then realize that we still aren't comfortable around each other. I like all of you, even the sauntering part of you."

"You saunter," Lily reminded him, smiling with familiarity. "I meander."

"Right, well--"

The door opened, or began to open, when Lily rushed over and grabbed it so that it couldn't be opened any further.

"Yes?" Lily asked, agitated.

"Oh. Er. Hello. Lily, right?" the girl asked. Lily recognized her immediately: the Gryffindor Quidditch captain, Nancy Adams.

"Yes. Nancy, hi. How are you?"

"Good," she replied uncertainly. She looked left and right a bit. "Can I use the loo?"

Lily smiled a tight smile. "Would you mind terribly finding a different one?"

"Why?" Nancy asked. Why she couldn't just leave, Lily did not know.

"I'm trying to snog a bloke in here," Lily replied, figuring that making the girl uncomfortable would make her run. Lily heard a bit of laughter behind her and smiled as James moved to her left, hidden by the door, his right hand resting on her back.

"Sirius Black?" Nancy asked. This time Lily laughed while James' arm wrapped possessively around her middle, bringing his body closer to hers and into Nancy's line of site.

"No," Lily replied, smiling at Nancy's obvious shock when she noticed him. "Not Sirius Black."

Nancy's eyes were wide as she stared at James. "James?"

"Hello, Nancy," he replied, pressing his side against Lily. She couldn't stop smiling, thinking about how this must look to an outsider: like a girlfriend having a secret rendezvous with her boyfriend's best friend. Ha!

"Are you two dating?" Nancy asked, waving her pointer finger back and forth between thenm.

"Each other?" Lily said, wording it to create drama. "No, _we're_ not dating."

Nancy nodded, said some more small chat, and finally fled. Lily and Jams shut the door laughing.

"That's going to create quite the stir," James said.

"And it'll be hilarious," Lily replied. He unwrapped his arm from around her waist and backed up. Lily missed him immediately.

"Okay. Maybe I'm a little jealous that everyone thinks you and Sirius are dating," James admitted with a half a smile. Lily laughed.

"Not just dating," Lily replied, smiling at the story that had sprung up from a rather mild visit to the boys’ dorm. "The first years tell me that we're getting married secretly over the summer because I'm carrying his child. It's all very complex."

"So you're the girl his mother wrote that Howler about, the one who asked him to marry her!" James said, joking. It made Lily think of her first patrol with a talking Remus all those months ago when she'd retold the story of that prank to Will McGrath. Had that been James?

Lily shrugged. "What can I say? We've been hiding our love from everyone for years."

The train kept chugging away, shaking slightly as Muggle trains sometimes did, and James and Lily looked at each other for a moment. They had come a long way.

"You know," Lily said, "I miss talking to you."

"We're talking now," James reminded her.

"I know, but that's not what I meant," Lily said, crossing her arms over her chest and glancing at the ceiling. "After I finished my practice N.E.W.T.s I just wanted to run up to Remus and talk to him about it, and then I remembered that he was you and I-- I was a tad frustrated. I forgave you for what you did. That was so easy, forgiving you, because I understand why you did it and I'm even beginning to be a little happy about the whole thing, but I still don't believe that you're-- well, him. Wow. That sounds so stupid."

"No," James said, a smile lighting up his face. "When I first started patrolling with you, I couldn't believe the way you were acting. I kept hearing what you said, making me laugh, and I just couldn't believe this was the same Lily Evans that I'd been chasing after for a year."

Lily laughed. "A year?"

"Or two," James amended, shocking Lily. Really? Was that true? Her heart constricted. "You called me a Transfiguration prodigy and jokingly said that Sirius was insane. You broke a hundred school rules by playing a game in the middle of the night with your friends. You were overwhelmingly humble and funny. You made sickle bets. You lied to Filch. You tackled Filch!"

"That was a good night," Lily said, smiling. And she had spent it with James, hadn't she? Despite her memories of Remus, it was James who remembered that night.

James shook his head and locked eyes with Lily, looking so genuinely happy that Lily couldn't help but feel giddy herself.

"I had been so sure I knew you in fifth year. In fourth year, too," James said. "You were gorgeous and wanted nothing to do with me. I thought it was because you were too reserved or something. I wanted to make you laugh, make you loosen up," James said. "I wanted to make you realize that life wasn't all about school. I wanted to make you like flying and tear you away from the library."

Lily blushed. She hated blushing. But she was. And she was smiling. She couldn't stop.

"Is that really what you thought?" Lily asked.

"Yeah," James asked, smiling self-mockingly. "I know. I was an idiot. Didn't know a thing about you, even after Tracy tried to convince me that you were the crazy one in the group, always willing to do something 'for the story.' Still, you were nothing like I expected."

Lily wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not and settled on saying, "Sirius said that to me too.”�

"Well, it's true," James said. "You weren't demure or catty like he imaged you might have been."

"Did you really just use the word demure?"

"Yes," James said. "Is that a word which, like 'lovely,' should be purged from my vocabulary?"

"Only if you want that girl you like to think you're interested in women."

"Ha! See, it was comments like that which I hadn't expected from you," James said. It was so easy slipping back into this joking, friendly conversation with James. Not that that meant that she wasn't still thinking about kissing him, but it did mean she was a little more comfortable laughing with him. "Sirius, that night your ex visited, came up to me and said, 'I was wrong. I approve. She's brilliant. What's your plan?'"

Lily laughed and shook her head, feeling more than a little embarrassed.

"Sirius is a bit nutty, isn't he?" Lily asked.

"More than that," James said. "He told me that night that he was going to have so much fun with this whole thing, told me that you and I simply had to be together."

"He told me we should have started dating at eleven, and in his F.A.D. letter he gave me a very, very blatant hint that I was being obtuse about you liking me, which, being obtuse, I missed," Lily said, not admitting how much it meant to her that Sirius had told James he approved of Lily.

"Oh, that was the night of the brilliant potato talk," James said, laughing. And Lily laughed too, more out of embarrassment than anything else.

"Once again I have to ask why you liked me if you thought I was uptight and snobby and everything," Lily said.

"Why did you like me when you thought I was a bullying toe-rag?" he asked.

"Point taken," Lily said, unwilling to admit that she also thought he'd been ridiculously attractive, disarming, intelligent, charming, and hilarious. She wasn't ready to give him that much information about her obsession.

"And when you started liking Remus," James said, shaking his head, "I wanted to blow up Hogwarts, I was so frustrated."

"If it's any conciliation, I think you're better looking than Remus," Lily said without thinking. She meant to comfort him. But when his eyes snapped up to meet hers and they emitted heat, her breath caught in her throat.

"Really?" he asked, his voice quiet and deep.

Lily, trying to lessen the tension and he overwhelming desire to snog him, said, "I just loved Remus's personality."

James looked briefly jealous before he laughed good-naturedly. "Sometimes, I forgot I was supposed to be Remus."

"Thinking back, I can tell." Lily looked at him. "On patrols you had this look on your face sometimes-- I called that the Remus look-- when you seemed so surprised by me that you were reassessing your idea of me. I adored that look. Actually, I just basically adored patrolling with you."

"That's because I'm adorable," James answered, shrugging and smirking. Lily leaned over and squeezed his cheek.

"Just so adorable," she said condescendingly. He looked at her then with laughter in his eyes, leaning in and kissing her cheek before he backed up to the door.

"So the holiday then?" he asked, hand on the door. A pang of regret coursed through Lily even as she nodded.

"I just--" She wanted somehow to explain why this was so important to her, why she needed these few months, why she needed to know that this was still something that he wanted after a large amount of time. She didn't want to have him with her for a week and then come back in September to awkwardness. It would kill her.

"You need to be convinced," James offered, smiling. "I understand. Promise."

Lily walked forward and wrapped her arms around him in a hug. _Please convince me._

Backing away from him, they both smiled, and then he opened the door and left. Lily took a moment to compose herself, washed her hands again, and then headed out of the loo in search of Sam and Tracy.

 

**~*~*~**

"Can we talk?" Lily asked, standing in the open door of her friend's compartment. Tracy and Sam looked back at her, sort of shocked, and nodded. Tracy scooted over against the window so that Lily could sit.

"Christine's not here," Tracy said. Lily shut the door.

"She's with Matt in the Prefect compartment," Lily answered, fully aware of the role reversal there: Tracy was normally the one that kept track of Christine, wasn't she? Lily shook her head, trying not to distract herself as she sat down.

The three of girls sat staring at each other for a moment too long. Sam met Lily's gaze. Tracy couldn't drag her eyes away from the floor.

"I know you lot didn't mean to hurt me," Lily began.

"We didn't," Tracy adamantly agreed, looking up.

"It was just such a shock," Lily said. Sam nodded, still silent.

"I almost killed Sirius when I found him out," Tracy said. Lily wanted to smile, but an echo of her earlier anger and irritation flared. She wanted to ask Tracy why she hadn't come to Lily at the beginning of the year when she realized that James liked her. Why had Tracy waited until James and Sirius kept something from _her_ before she became angry and wanted to talk about everything?

"I remember seeing Sirius pick you up and drag you out of the common room," Lily said.

"I elbowed him in the head," Tracy said, eyes narrowing. She looked like the Beater that she was right then. "Peter was busy trying to convince Sam not to say anything, to give James time."

The scorn in her voice made Lily sort of flinch, but before she could even begin to tell Tracy about the deal she had made with James, Sam interrupted.

"You've forgiven James, haven't you?" Sam asked. Lily looked over at her, shocked for a moment before she remembered that Sam had once seemed able to read Lily's mind. Then Lily nodded.

"What?" Tracy sounded distraught.

"I forgave him," Lily said, feeling guilty, though she wasn't sure why.

"You forgave him because you like him," Tracy accused. "But you still haven't forgiven two of your best friends."

"Well, I understand what he did," Lily returned, looking out the window of the compartment. "To tell you the truth, if I'd thought of it, I would have made myself look like Sirius if it meant I could have spent time with James."

"Ew," Tracy said.

Lily laughed. "I didn't mean I'd kiss him like that-- ha! Sorry. No. That wasn't where I was going with that."

"Then where were you going with it?" Sam asked. Lily gave her friend a shrug and a half smile.

"I still don't really understand why you did what you did," Lily said. "I would have told you everything."

"We thought this was the only way," Tracy said. Lily took a deep breath, trying not to say what an idiotic thought that had been.

"Well, in any case, I wanted you to know that I forgive you, too," Lily said. "It was a shock. It hurt. But I'm not about to let this get in the middle of six years of friendship."

Well, okay, that was a bit of a lie. Lily had already let this upset six years of friendship, but she was working to stop the bitterness and anger that she still felt. Lily just knew that if she didn't make this okay before they all left this train, coming back next year would be horrific and then all of seventh year would be awkward. She didn't want her final year at Hogwarts to be the worst one.

"Did you read my letter?" Tracy asked.

And a flare of anger went through Lily again, but she shook it away. "Yes."

"And?" Tracy asked.

She looked so earnest, so eager that Lily sort of wanted to curse her. Lily mentally went through the letter and her possible reactions again: I want to kill you for the Wednesday night study idea; I want to kill you for not telling me that James was talking to you about me; I want to kill you for talking to him about me at all; I want to kill you for lying to me; but most of all I want to kill you for making this all about you, Tracy.

"I'm sorry you lost the Quidditch Cup," Lily said. Luckily, Tracy laughed in response. Lily smiled.

"I've missed you, Lily," Tracy said, leaning over and hugging her. Lily nodded in response even though she honestly wasn't sure she had missed Tracy. She'd had Sirius and Christine and Gertrude to fill that void.

Sam and Tracy had been Lily's closest friends for years. They had been comfortable and fun and everything that Lily had needed. But somehow this new seventeen-year-old Lily Evans needed something else from her friends, something that was not exactly comfortable, something that was not exactly perfect. She needed people that knew comfort and perfection were overrated. She needed people that knew the world was not black and white, that knew friends didn't have to be the same type of people with the same sort of values, that knew Lily Evans could be happy having dinner with a Slytherin and tackling Sirius Black in a the corridor even though she had been attacked by Death Eaters.

And unfortunately, Samantha Caldwell and Tracy McGrath were no longer the people that worked with Lily Evans.

But still, they were friends. They would always be friends. Maybe not close, but forever bound together by a childhood friendship that helped shape the people they would become.

 

 

~*~*~

 

After three hours of conversation, the train pulled into the station. Amidst hugs, the girls said their goodbyes and then collected their trunks and pulled them off the train to waiting parents. Lily passed by Tracy's family.

"Bye, Lily!" Will called out. "See you next year!"

"See you next year, Will," Lily replied, smiling. "I'd hug you goodbye, but I don't want to embarrass you."

Will smiled and nodded, then glanced around, raced forward and wrapped his arms around Lily quickly before racing back to his parents, a blush on his cheeks. Mr. and Mrs. McGrath waved, smiling. Lily laughed. Christine, who stood next to Matt, also came up to hug Lily goodbye.

"You all right, Christine?" Lily asked. Christine, who looked particularly sad, shook her head. "Why not?"

"He's not coming back next year," she mumbled, and Lily hugged her friend tighter. Oh, how sad.

"Matt'll visit you," Lily assured her.

"But he won't, you know, be there," Christine said, sounding as if she were on the verge of crying.

"He'll write you."

"But he won't be there," Christine repeated and Lily could say no more comforting words. No, Matt wouldn't be there. This was probably the first time Christine had let Lily see how very attached she was to Matt. Lily had always known, but for Christine to be so open about it she must be really sad. Lily was taken aback by concern and love for her friend.

A hand on her shoulder made Lily break out of the hug and turn to find Matt McGrath standing behind her looking sadly at Christine and then sort of smiling at Lily.

"It's been a great year," he said. Lily nodded, giving him a quick hug.

"It has," she said, looking at Christine. The blonde girl was trying to blink back her tears.

"I'm sure I'll see you both over the holiday," Lily said. "Matt, you only live a few blocks from me so plan to come over, and I'm sure Christine will visit you loads."

"She will," Matt agreed, looking at Christine. Christine smiled, but then seemed ready to cry again, even if she obviously didn't want to. Matt reached out and pulled Christine into a tight hug. They stood there for a while and Lily felt like an unnecessary third wheel until Sirius Black wrapped his arms around her middle from behind, picked her up, and twirled her away as she shrieked.

"Put me down. Down. Down. Down." When he did set her down, Lily turned to face him, half laughing and half horrified. "Personal boundaries, remember?"

"Right, I don't respect those, remember?" Sirius replied. He crossed his arms and smiled at her. "So, I hear you're cheating on me with Sputnik."

Lily laughed. "Oh no! Who told you?"

"Nancy Adams confronted me immediately," Sirius said. He looked very excited. "So are you really cheating on me?"

"No," Lily said, knowing he was asking whether or not James and she were together. "I'm sure he'll tell you about it later."

"He will. We're like twins." Sirius shrugged elegantly.

"I know, I hear McGonagall complain about it all the time," Lily said, flicking his arm.

"What was that flick for?"

"The holidays. I just thought a pre-emptive strike was in order," Lily said.

"What could I do to you over the holidays that would warrant a flick?"

"Harass James about me? Talk about me?" Lily suggested.

"Oh, right, well that was a given," Sirius said. Lily smiled at him. He was a strange bloke: a juxtaposition of devilish charm and old world aristocratic features, gestures, and manners he couldn't suppress; he was the physical embodiment of all he claimed to renounce. And he was, hands down, one of the most important people in Lily's life.

"I'm going to miss you, Sirius Black," Lily said, realizing as she looked at him that it was true.

"You know something, Lily? I'm going to miss you too," Sirius said in an uncharacteristically sincere voice. Lily smiled up him, winking.

"You'll miss me, eh?" She leaned in and whispered, "Does Sputnik know?"

"No. Sputnik's a jealous bugger. I'm keeping it from him," Sirius replied, shaking his head with mock-sadness. He looked over his shoulder and Lily followed his gaze, noticing James standing with two people who might have been his parents, though they looked a bit old. James was looking back at her. She waved and smiled at him, feeling very brave and forward. He waved back, raising his eyebrows at Sirius and then looking at a pair of first years watching them avidly. Ha! That was great.

"I'm off to live with the Potters," Sirius said. That's right. Lily remembered hearing him talk about running away from his family on New Year's Eve. Something about the Ball.

"That's nice."

"Their house is amazing. They have these fabulous cats and I even get a room in the family wing."

"The family wing?" Lily repeated, incredulous. Sirius laughed. "You must be joking."

"Good to know you're not after him for his money," Sirius said.

"I'm after him for his family, actually, the magical lineage and all," Lily joked, glad to return to joking with Sirius about James, but a dark look crossed Sirius's face for a moment and he scared Lily a little.

"Well, families do determine everything about a person," Sirius replied in jest, but Lily saw his eyes focus on her and that guilt was creeping into him again.

"Psh," Lily said, brushing his comment and his look aside, trying to lighten the mood. "Families don't determine the type of person you are. Look at my Muggle family. And I'm sure Dumbledore's got some crazy ducks in his family tree."

"Dumbledore is the crazy duck."

"Right, well, I'm sure he has some normal relatives," Lily said. Sirius shook his head and muttered something about goats that Lily ignored.

"You're going to write me twelve page missives, right?" Sirius asked, changing the subject. Lily laughed.

"Who do you think you are? Did you just ask if I was going to write you a 'missive'?" Lily shook her head at him. "And why don't you write me?"

"I'm a bloke," Sirius said condescendingly, pointing to his chest. "We don't do that."

"That's too bad, because I'm a girl and we don't write first." Lily shrugged. A couple of fifth years walking behind Sirius looked back and forth between Lily and him, then turned to whisper to each other about what a cute couple they were.

"Then we find ourselves in a conundrum," Sirius said. "Unless, of course, you let James write you--"

"You're still coming with me to my sister's wedding, right?" Lily asked, taking charge and changing the subject on her own. Tom, the sixth year that got stuck in the stair, waved goodbye to Lily. She smiled and waved back.

"August 15th I'm the best date you'll ever have," Sirius agreed. Then his face fell into an exaggerated frown. "Do I have to wear one of those-- those tie things?"

"Shut it, Sirius," Lily said, noticing a rather large family walking through the barrier to leave the station. "Pretend all you want, but I know you're secretly very able to handle yourself in proper company."

"We'll just have to see about that when I turn up with a tie around my knee."

Lily put her hair up into a ponytail. "See? You knew that wasn't where the tie belonged."

"Foiled again," Sirius mumbled. He nodded his farewell at a bloke in Ravenclaw that Lily vaguely recognized as a seventh year.

"I'm off, then," Lily said, jerking her head in the direction of her waiting parents. Sirius gave them a wave and then turned back to Lily.

"About the wedding," he said, "owl me to make sure I don't forget."

"All right," Lily agreed, reaching out and hugging him briefly, tightly. "Bye."

"You know, James is over there if you just want to give him a goodbye kiss."

"Sure, I'll just walk up and snog him senseless in front of his parents and a bunch of students that think I'm dating you."

Sirius nodded, looking expectantly at her as if she were going to do just that.

"You should hang around Christine more often," Lily said. She summoned her trunk over from where Christine and Matt were still talking, and pulled her magically lightened trunk over to her parents. She loved being of age.

"Goodbye, Lily Evans!" Sirius shouted across the platform.

Lily, laughing, yelled back, "Goodbye, Sirius Black!"

Her parents looked at her expectantly as she approached. She had already said hello to them, only to then ask that she could say goodbye to some friends before they left.

"Who was that boy?" Mrs. Evans asked. Her father just stood there scowling. Even with Christian, he had never overcome his hatred of the thought of his little girl dating.

"That's my friend Sirius who I'm bringing to Petunia's wedding," Lily replied as her father took hold of the trunk and put it on the cart. Obviously not expecting it to be so light, he over balanced and almost fell over.

"I lightened it," Lily explained. She should have told him before.

"You what?" her father asked, confused.

"Just something I learned at school," Lily said, feeling another brick added to the wall between her father and her. But she brushed that thought aside. This was her family. No matter what came between them, they were connected through roots they could never break. Ever.

"Lily, I think Sam wants to talk to you," Mrs. Evans said, pointing over Lily's shoulder where Sam stood. Lily thanked her mother and excused herself briefly as she walked over to her friend.

"Hey, Sam," Lily greeted, leaning in and hugging her friend uncertainly. Sam didn't look that well.

"Lily, I didn't mean to give you twenty feet of parchment and disappear," Sam whispered in Lily's ear. "And I know you haven't completely forgiven us yet, but maybe by September, things will be easier."

They backed out of the hug.

"I'm sure they will be," Lily said.

They nodded at each other, these two best friends of five years who refused to acknowledge the disassembling of their friendship.

"I'll write you every week," Sam said.

"And I'll respond to every second owl," Lily said. It was an old joke between them. And it was almost funny except that both girls felt like they were lying.

"Bye, Lily," Sam said.

"Bye, Sam," Lily replied, watching her friend leave as her mother called her to get in the car. Lily had almost forgotten how well Sam knew her, knew her emotions, knew that she needed twenty feet of parchment instead of a lecture about opening up.

No, Sam, Tracy, and Lily would never have exactly the same relationship they'd had before, but in September things would be better, or they would be better at pretending nothing had changed.

 


	24. I Once Called This Home

June and July ended in a flurry of pale green dress fittings and in-law introductions and stressed-out Petunia moments; she wanted her wedding to be perfect. The family tried to help, to convince her it would be, but she was on edge and ready to snap at anyone -- read: Lily -- whenever anything went wrong.

Of course, Petunia actually had a legitimate reason to scream at Lily's sixth fitting (the first five dressmakers, Petunia had said after they'd finished with Lily, were all horrid).

"Are you sure you want me to wear green?" Lily asked as the woman wrapped the tape around her middle.

"I picked the bride's maids dresses with you in mind. Don't complain," Petunia said, almost hysterical as she flipped the page in her wedding cake book. She'd cancelled her original order the day before.

"Okay, not complaining," Lily said. Her sister was in enough of a mood as it was.

That, of course, was when the owl came flying into the room.

"Ahhhhhhh!" the dressmaker screamed, avoiding stabbing Lily in the eye with her nails only because Lily jumped off her stool and called the owl down to her arm.

By then Petunia and the dressmaker were competing, it seemed, for shrillest shriek. Mrs. Evans came running in trying to calm them, but that entailed yelling and the whole thing was a disaster.

Lily untied a thick roll of parchment and sent the bird on its way.

After some cajoling--and flat out lying to the dressmaker--Mrs. Evans moved the fitting right along. Lily clutched her letter. Christine was horrible at writing over the holidays, but she had stopped by twice with Matt. Matt wrote Lily only to say when they were coming over. Gertrude hadn't been in touch with her all summer, not that Lily had really expected her to write. Sam hadn't written her either, and that was a bit more of a surprise. Tracy wrote her short notes about meaningless things. Lily wrote back with equally empty letters, a bit sad at this turn of events.

Sirius wrote her religiously: every third day his owl would hop up on her windowsill and wait to be noticed. She'd write back immediately, his well-trained owl waiting for her to finish, no matter how long it took.

But the owl that came to the fitting was not an owl Lily recognized.

In the car on the way home, as Petunia sobbed something awful about her wedding falling apart and Mrs. Evans tried to console her, Lily began to read.

 

~*~*~

_Lily,_  
_This is a letter from James: me. I'm not writing this because Sirius is pestering me to, though he is and if you could tell him to stop, that would be LOVELY. This is a copy of the revised essay I wrote for Carpenter on my Muggle Studies project. Enjoy._  
_James_

Lily looked up at her sister and mother in the front seats and surreptitiously kept reading, wondering if she was about to read about cheese in a can.

_Assignment, part three: Talk to a Muggle-born student and ask them what they miss most about the Muggle world. Does it correspond to what they believe they gave up to come to Hogwarts? Why or why not?_

_When I first started this assignment, I knew what I would miss most if I were a Muggle-born: whipped cream in a can. I still want to try that. So I wrote my essay and asked Lily Evans if I could put her name on it._

_I received a "redo" on this section of the project and could not imagine why._

_I had not thought about how learning magic -- a skill your family can't imagine, didn't even believe existed -- would affect a Muggle-born student._

_When Lily was ten years old, she understood the world completely. Her mum read books with her at night, and her dad threw nighttime picnics to point out the stars from the hill behind their house. Her sister played football with Lily and her friends on Saturday mornings, and Sundays were spent at the library when it was raining and the beach during holidays. Her parents were in a great Muggle war, and she knew her dad could fend off bad guys and her mum could stitch her up._

_Then her Hogwarts letter arrived._

_She boarded a train that took her from her mum's cooking and dad's astronomy lessons, and learned on her first day that her parents had been wrong about everything. It was devastating. And when she told them all the things they didn't know about Goblin Wars and centaur uprisings, Grindewald and the deaths of the battles, they sent back letters that read like it was all a fantastical story. Her sister asked her to do magic, and Lily stopped trying to make them understand._

_Coming to Hogwarts, Lily Evans gave up her family, hobbies, and dreams of taking A-levels, leaving school, and boating around the world during her gap year before going to University like her parents and sister. She forfeited the security of her parents' omniscience, her sister's advice. She'd study without their help. Pick a career by herself._

_At Hogwarts, she imagined she was joining a fairytale, not knowing that threats like Voldemort lurked in her world, full of hate. Not knowing schoolmates would mock her. Not knowing she'd have to work twice as hard to understand the place she'd entered._

_She misses her sister Petunia, her childhood best mate Adrianna, her parents. She misses feeling safe._

_But most of all, seventeen-year-old Lily Evans misses the magical world when she is not here because after six years of emersion, she can't help but have new dreams for the future of spell crafting and world healing. She has seen the magical world's dark side and refuses to crave ignorance. Fueled with magic and all of the new magical possibilities, Lily has learned that she would give up magic for no one._ _She gave up the Muggle world at eleven, and misses the fact that she doesn't miss it at all._

Her fingers gentled around the parchment. How had he remembered all of their conversations so well, all of Lily's passing mentions of Adrianna and football and her dream to sail around the world?

"Are you all right, Lily?" Mrs. Evans asked, turning around. Lily shrugged and nodded, realizing they were home. "You're crying."

Lily stepped out of the car and stood on her driveway, looking up at her white Muggle home. She looked at her mother staring worriedly at her. Even Petunia looking concerned. Lily wanted to tell them about James and the potion and the trickery and how this letter had convinced her that James was fine, James was better than fine. He was Remus. But telling them that would probably only worry them more.

"I really missed you both this year," Lily said, rolling up the parchment and shoving it in her back pocket. "And I'm so excited that you're getting married, Petunia."

"Oh," Petunia said, narrowing her eyes at her. "Thank you."

"Yes, dear, thank you," Mrs. Evans said, wrapping an arm around Lily as the three of them made it into the house and then to the kitchen to start dinner. There was a mess of parchment on the counter that Lily had left there for about a week now.

"Lily, I really need you to decide and move all of this stuff one way or the other." Mrs. Evans opened the fridge.

Lily looked down at the pile, at the letter with Dumbledore's signature and the shiny Head Girl badge resting on top of the envelope it came in. She looked at that gold badge and thought about everything it meant, everything she had thought she did not want: responsibility; pressure; McGonagall on her case; leading meetings; students looking at her like she knew what she was doing; and the need to lead these students through a year when Voldemort may or may not be caught, may or may not kill another family.

Lily picked up the badge and, as she had done each day since it arrived, wondered why it had been offered to her. She didn’t deserve to be Head Girl.

But then she thought about the way Gertrude had told her that she thought Lily was a one half of the leader Hogwarts needed. Lily thought about that first year, Rebecca, saying she wanted Lily to be Head Girl. She thought about how hard Sirius would laugh at her appointment and how McGonagall might keel over in shock and how Diana would have combusted at the news, had she known Lily would be offered the position.

But no matter what else she considered, one thing was true: Lily had big plans, big dreams, dreams that truly did eclipse her childhood ones. And she was not about to let her own fear, let alone fear of what anyone else might think of her, keep her from accomplishing great things. 

 

~*~*~

The day before the wedding, Lily came home from walking Shooting Star to find her room filled with flowers. So filled, in fact, that Lily was unable to lay down on her bed, let alone lounge around in there like she normally did.

"Mum, did someone misplace a few hundred roses?" Lily asked as Mrs. Evans raced down the hall with a handful of pins.

"What? No." Her mother disappeared into the room that Lily now referred to as 'the changing room.' Few people left that room without bruises. She did everything she could to avoid being in there, let alone being in there with Petunia, who was very, very convinced that Lily was trying to ruin her wedding by fitting her dress poorly.

Lily went to her father's study on the first floor and found him on the phone. She was about to head out when he covered the mouthpiece and told her he was on hold, was there anything she needed?

"I was just wondering why my room suddenly looks like a botanical garden," Lily said.

"I'm on the phone with the florist now," Mr. Evans said. "They had the wrong day. Don't tell your sister. You know how she is."

Lily smiled. "I'll keep it secret. But where am I sleeping tonight?"

"I'll have this all cleared up before you have to go to bed," Mr. Evans said, but just as he was about to explain further, the person on the phone apparently came back and he made an apologetic hand gesture at Lily as he started discussing his disappointment in the organizational ability of the florist.

But Mr. Evans was unable to fix the problem and she wound up sleeping on Petunia's floor.

Her parents had decided to ignore their daughters' inherent inability to communicate with one another and handed Lily a sleeping bag. Petunia was miffed that Lily was trying to ruin her wedding by sleeping in the same room as her (she didn't say anything, but Lily could feel the resentment) and Lily was miffed that her sister was unable to sleep as she seemed too full of nerves to properly relax. In fact, she'd been that way for nearly a month now, snapping at anyone or anything that she perceived as a threat to her wedding.

"Are you asleep, Lily?" Petunia asked in the middle of the night.

"Your tossing and turnings hasn't exactly been conducive to sleep," Lily muttered, lifting her head briefly off her pillow on the floor and focusing her eyes on the place where she knew her sister was lying. The room was too dark to see the bed in detail, but she saw the outline.

"Lily, I'm getting married in twenty hours.” Yes, it was hard to believe.

"Less than that, really." Lily put her head back on her shoddy cotton pillow. At least she hadn't been stuck with a pile of acorns.

"You're not helping me fall asleep," Petunia said curtly, as if was Lily's fault that her sister was the most tightly wound person in the world.

"Are you nervous?"

Maybe she didn't sound as patronizing as she did in her head, because Petunia's response was a mild, "No, why would I be nervous?"

"Because that's normal."

"How would you know?" Petunia asked, as if it were impossible that Lily would ever be able to know when something was normal simply because she was a witch. Sometimes, Petunia really irritated her.

Lily rolled her eyes. "Haven't you read a single novel? Even Muggle novels show brides as nervous."

"Don't use that ridiculous word."

"I’ll stop if you admit you're nervous."

Petunia was silent. "Well then, yes, I suppose I am nervous. I'm shaking. I never shake. Shaking is unnatural."

Lily smiled, probably the first time she had ever genuinely smiled in response to her sister's neurosis. "Want to talk about it?"

"With you?"

"No, with the other idiot lying on your floor." Why did Petunia have to make everything so difficult?

"If you're going to use that tone, then no, I don't want to talk about it." The sisters lay there for three silent seconds. "I love him so much." Lily could hear the smile in her sister's words.

"Vernon?" 

"Yes." Despite her personal feelings, Lily couldn't deny that Vernon Dursley seemed to fit Petunia perfectly-- though his sister Marge, with her horrid table manners and disposition, did not. He had a forceful personality, drive, and ambition. He would have been a Slytherin with his business plans already in the works. It was a perfect compliment to Petunia's quieter but equally fierce desire to lead her life following the timeline she had outlined on her seventh birthday: uni, marriage, promotion for her husband, child, security, new car.

"And he wants to marry me," Petunia said wonderingly.

"He seems to want to spend forever with you," Lily said, oddly jealous of her sister for a moment. If there was anything Lily gleaned from the rehearsal dinner, it was that Vernon Dursley saw something in Petunia that Lily did not. He told Petunia that she was everything he needed to succeed in life. Lily had felt badly for not seeing that greatness in her sister.

"Vernon would never say that. He knows there's no such thing as forever," Petunia said pragmatically, making Lily want to throw her pillow at her. "Everyone dies and we have only a few decades to be together."

"Wow, that's a gloomy thought.” If Petunia could have passed laws, she would have outlawed metaphors, hyperbola, and exaggeration along with imagination. "In any case, Vernon does seem to want to marry you."

Petunia made a happy sound and so Lily, despite not understanding how that simple statement could make Petunia swoon, felt glad that she had said it.

"How'd you meet him?" Lily asked.

"At the butcher's. I was still dating Peter at the time. It was early September."

"Really?" Lily asked, scandalized.

"I know," Petunia whispered. "I smiled at Vernon, and he says when he saw me he knew he had to have me as his girlfriend. That's how he talks about it."

"Bit possessive, wasn't he?" If someone told her he 'knew he had to have her,' she probably would never have spoken to him again.

"He didn't care that I was dating another bloke. He asked for my name and looked up the family number. Said he phoned thirty Evanses in the area before finding one with a Petunia." Petunia sounded light and happy. Lily didn't think she'd ever heard her sister sound this way before. "He came by every day. I told him I was seeing someone. He said he'd wait for me to come to my senses. And I did."

"I'm happy for you." After months of bitterness and years of frustration between them -- at first because her older sister wouldn't let her play with her and later because Petunia could never understand the changes Hogwarts brought about in Lily, and Lily had no desire to expend effort bridging the gap between them as her sister changed too -- this was the first time they had common ground. The first time in what felt like forever, though Lily certainly wouldn't say that aloud for fear of her sister correcting her.

"I should sleep," Petunia said, sounding more like she was giving herself a command than relaying the information to Lily.

"Take the sleeping pill Mum left you,.".

"I took it ten minutes ago."

"Oh," Lily said, smiling. "Good. I'll see you tomorrow morning."

Even as she failed to fall asleep, Lily wondered if James would be as willing to wait for Lily as Vernon had been for Petunia. Then she mentally smacked herself for thinking about James at all. This was her sister's big day.

 

~*~*~

The next morning found Lily was waiting in her bride's maid dress for Sirius to arrive. She had to introduce him to her parents and Petunia at some point, and had suggested he come over early so that Faith and Mark Evans could drill him early if they so desired.

There was a knock at the door and Lily raced over to open it, excited to see her friend after nearly two months apart. He looked impeccable in a Muggle outfit with black pants, a blue collared shirt, and shiny black shoes. Lily briefly wondered if Mrs. Potter had helped him pick out the outfit.

"Hi," Lily said, giving him a welcoming hug. He barely hugged her back, his jaw clenched. "You all right?"

"I'm fine," Sirius said, stepping inside. But he wasn't fine. He didn't even tease Lily about her bride's maid dress that fell to the floor and had pouf-sleeves out to her elbows.

"Lily, is this your friend Sirius?" Mrs. Evans asked. Lily introduced them. Sirius shook Mr. Evans's hand and stepped up to kiss Mrs. Evans’s cheek, muttering 'How do you do?' Lily looked at him with wide eyes while her parents made small talk about school and travel. After a few minutes, her parents retreated into the kitchen.

"You're in a weird mood."

"I am not," Sirius said, putting his hands in his pocket and looking out the window.

"Yes, you are. You only demonstrate manners when you're distracted. And your accent reverts."

"Drop it, Lily," Sirius snapped. She blinked at him. Sirius didn’t use that tone with her. Petunia raced through the living room, stopping when she noticed the guest and quickly introducing herself.

"I'm Sirius Black," he said, holding her hand as he went to kiss her cheek. She flinched back, but Sirius covered the awkward moment well. "Congratulations on the wedding."

"Thank you," Petunia said, not smiling as she looked at him like he might turn her into a toad and ruin her day. Lily was impressed that she had spoken to him at all. "I'm sorry, I have to run."

"Of course. It was nice to meet you, Miss Evans."

Petunia was gone a moment later, leaving Lily looking closely at Sirius, who told her to stop it again. She was about to say something when she remembered James telling her a long time ago that Sirius did not seem to want his help, would not accept his help. Lily decided the best thing she could do would be to avoid the subject.

"How'd you do on your practice N.E.W.T.s?" Lily asked, leaning against her couch. She hoped her mother or sister wouldn't come and scold her for wrinkling the dress.

"Not outstandingly." He did not sit or slouch or lean. "But I suppose that's to be expected since I didn't study for them and treated them as a joke since I knew they wouldnt effect my marks or future."

"You sure you're all right?"

"Yes. I'm just thinking about Sputnik and you."

"Liar." 

"Time to go. Time to go," Lily's father said, shooing them toward the door and the car outside.

Sirius followed, holding the door open for Lily, saying, "No. Really. Sputnik's really rather enamored with you, you know. He's thinking of tattooing your name on his arm."

Lily laughed.

"You think I'm kidding? You should have seen his O.W.L. exams. Had little snitches and L.E.s all over them."

Lily blushed, thinking of her own scribbling hearts with J.P. in them. "You just had a grand old time with us this year, didn't you?"

"You better believe it." But even with his joking tone, Lily could tell he was angry. “But you and James had to figure it out, didn’t you?”

Lily nodded as Sirius opened the car door and helped her into the backseat. "I suppose we did."

Sirius climbed in after her. "You agree with me? This is a moment for history."

"Maybe I should buy you some strawberries to celebrate the occasion."

"I knew that F.A.D. note would do me good," Sirius said, grinning. "I expect you to treasure it as you would a child or brick of gold."

"Oh yes, I taped it to my wall as a constant reminder of our undying friendship," Lily said, trying to make him smile.

"I'm upset to say that I didn't receive one from you, or I might have done the same," Sirius said, giving her a pointed look.

"Yeah, well, I didn't write Will McGrath either and he's been harassing me much longer than you."

"Did you tape Remus's note up?" Sirius asked as Mrs. Evans and Petunia climbed into the car, Petunia holding her dress in front of her.

"His note was rather lame," Lily admitted, not really wanting to be reminded of her infatuation with Remus-who-was-really-James while crammed into her family car next to her mother.

"That's because that fool had hardly ever spoken to you when he wrote that. Yet, somehow, he received one of your coveted notes while I was overlooked." Sirius arched his eyebrows in that way that was so peculiar to him.

"I taped the secret admirer's note to my wall," Lily said in a low enough voice that she thought her parents wouldn't hear. They were discussing the fastest way to drive to the church. Sirius smiled approvingly at her. 

 

~*~*~

Standing at the back of the church, hearing the organ music begin as the guests hurried to sit, Lily looked at her sister, Petunia Novaria Evans, and could not keep from feeling awe. Petunia -- who was truly too thin, too mean, too biting, and too everything that Lily once thought she hated -- looked beautiful right then, and Lily hate that she had never thought so before.

"Petunia, I--" Lily began, no longer caring about the green dress that was too tight in all the wrong places, but the words stopped in her throat.

"Yes?" Petunia asked, still staring forward.

"Still nervous?" What a stupid question to ask as the music was playing and the flower girls were already marching down the aisle.

"No," Petunia said primly, though sincerely. "I'm very happy and proud to be marrying Vernon."

"He seems to care for you a great deal," Lily said, playing with the bouquet in her hands.

"He does," Petunia said, smiling a wide smile. It made her face seem less horse-like. The bride's men and women began to walk down the aisle.

"You look beautiful, Petunia."

For the first time, Petunia turned to look at Lily, shocked. Then she nodded and looked back at the doorway that led to her future.

"You and I are very different people," Petunia whispered. "You were always meant for... freakish things. When we were little you wanted to travel all over the world in a boat. Instead, you went to that-- that place-- and you found your strange path in life. This is mine, and I am proud of it."

"When we were little, all you wanted was a green lawn and a clean kitchen," Lily answered. It had always been one of the things that drove the two sisters insane: Lily always thought Petunia wanted to settle for boring, and Petunia always thought Lily was reaching beyond her scope.

Lily and her male counterpart began walking down the aisle.

"This is my happy ending," Petunia whispered as Mr. Evans walked up and looped his arm through Petunia's. Lily smiled for her sister. Yes, this was exactly what Petunia had always wanted: a white dress, a full church, a dignified husband, and a comfortable marriage.

 

 

~*~*~

The ceremony was long and Lily had to admit that she spent more time wondering what was bothering Sirius, who sat in the front row beside her parents, than she did listening to the wedding. But Lily did watch her sister say 'I do' and kiss her husband. And Lily clapped like everyone else.

 

 

~*~*~

Dancing with Sirius at the reception in her magically modified dress (Lily made it shorter and removed the sleeves), Lily found that Sirius Black noticeably distant, keeping himself from completely opening up to her even as he twirled her around that dance floor like an old pro. He didn't trust her, she realized, and that was okay, because he didn't trust anyone except three seventeen-year-old boys who must have done something extraordinary to gain his confidence.

"You certainly charmed the family," Lily said.

"What? Oh. Neat."

Lily looked over Sirius's back and said, "Although my mother thinks you're a tad too uptight."

"Would she prefer if I blew something up?"

"Actually, she might really enjoy that," Lily admitted. "My sister, however, would carve you like pumpkin with a dull knife."

"Not exactly a pleasant experience."

"No."

There was a pause before Sirius said, "Thank you for inviting me."

Lily smiled. "Thank you for coming, Sirius. You're a good friend."

And he was. It was comfortable dancing with Sirius, twirling with him, letting him lead her through the steps to elaborate dances he pretended not to know. He never stepped on her feet, never came too close or went too far. But still, the hand on her back didn't send tingles through her as James's touch did. Oh damn. She should not have been thinking that.

Yet she already was.

Seeing his eyes go distant again, Lily asked, "Will you just tell me what it is that's bothering you already? Didn't we learn that secrets are evil this year?"

Sirius began to respond that he was fine, then stopped himself. "I want to leave. You want to leave?"

Lily laughed, but stopped when she saw that he was looking at her quite earnestly. "Are you joking?"

"No. Let's go."

"That's crazy," Lily said, motioning with her hand around the room. "This is my sister's wedding reception. Where would we go?"

"I have to go talk to an old friend," Sirius said. Lily narrowed her eyes at him as she shook a finger at him.

"Is this a ploy to force James and--"

"No, no, this is about Gertrude."

Lily looked at him, standing there in front of her dancing relatives and her sister's new in-laws, worry scratching up her stomach. "What are you talking about?" 

"Nothing. Never mind." He moved to start dancing again, but Lily grabbed his arm and dragged him to a table away from the dance floor.

"Sirius, what is going on with you? Is something wrong with Gertrude?"

Sirius scowled. "No, nothing's wrong with her."

"I can't just leave my sister's reception," Lily said. "But you can if you need to."

"Right," Sirius scoffed, looking longingly at the exit.

"Sirius, honestly, if you need to do something right now, I don't mind if you leave early," Lily said, grabbing Sirius's chin and forcing him to meet her eye.

"I'm not going to run away from my obligation--"

"You have no obligation to me except friendship and that goes two ways. You can leave if you have to." 

Sirius spent a good long time looking at Lily, his handsome face slowly unfreezing, his clenched jaw relaxing. He looked like a child itching to run into a puddle, too afraid the permission was conditional. "That's not how proper society works."

"But that's how I work," Lily said, "and it's how you work, too, when you're not moody and distant. So stop following your crazy social rules and be normal. You are allowed to leave early."

Sirius shook his head and blinked a couple of times, looking away. "You have no idea--" He cut himself off and when he spoke again, it was to say, "Come with me."

"Sirius--"

Sirius took her hand in both of his. "Please? I need someone there."

Lily looked down at his hand and then back over the room, spotting her sister dancing in the middle of the room with Vernon as her mother and father laughed by the cake in the opposite corner. She looked over her extended family who twirled on that dance floor, blissfully ignorant of the fact that the last time Lily was near a dance floor she had been attacked by sociopaths, blissfully ignorant of the fact that when Lily went back to school in September she was facing a war-torn world of floating daggers and deep prejudices.

Then she looked over at Sirius Black, her friend who had seen her at her worst, sobbing in the dungeon of a thousand year old castle. He had wrapped his arms around her and written to Gertrude. She owed him a favor or two.

"All right," Lily said, looking up at her friend who understood her world. "Let's go."

 

~*~*~

Gertrude's home was not exactly what Lily had expected. In fact, it was little more than a townhouse in London. Stepping out of the taxi was a definite disappointment. Sirius didn't notice as he rang the doorbell. A house-elf opened the door, greeted them, and asked why they had called on the Wrightmans.

After Sirius and Lily stepped into the foyer, Sirius reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a business card. When the house-elf saw Sirius, Lily swore its already-too-big eyes widened. He gave it to the elf, who disappeared with a pop.

"This is Gertrude's home?" Lily asked.

"This is where they receive visitors from England," Sirius corrected her, staring at the wall, his jaw still clenched. Lily found herself wishing the Wrightman family liked windows more. She felt like she was in a coffin.

As Sirius brooded, she let herself feel guilty about leaving the reception without telling her parents or sister where she was going. But they had been occupied -- her parents with the Dursley parents and Petunia with a large group of her friends from the uni -- and Lily doubted they would miss her.

A woman's voice startled her out of her thoughts, saying, "I didn't believe it when I saw the card, but here you are."

Lily looked over to see who had spoken and found herself facing possibly the most gorgeous woman she'd ever seen in her life. Mid-height with black hair and silver-blue eyes, the woman's face looked like something carved from stone: it was strong yet feminine with full lips, sharp cheek bows, and deep-set eyes. Even in light blue robes, she moved like water and looked like a Greek statue of Aphrodite come to life.

"Yes, here I am," Sirius said in a distant, formal tone. Lily looked at him strangely, almost not recognizing his cold voice.

"And in that special outfit, no less," the woman said, her voice dripping with sincerity as her eyes raked over Sirius's Muggle outfit. Lily was a little irked by this woman, who was less like Aphrodite and more like Medusa when she spoke.

"Where is Miss Wrightman?" Sirius asked in that still-too-formal voice.

"Gertrude will be along shortly. Her mother needed her help preparing a letter and I offered to escort the guests. Of course, Mrs. Wrightman would never have allowed such a breach in etiquette, but as we used to be family, I insisted," the woman said, turning her eyes on Lily. "I don't believe I know this girl, Sirius."

"No, you don't, Bellatrix." 

Lily opened her mouth to offer her name, but she quickly shut it when Sirius gave a sharp shake of his head. Lily mentally shrugged. He knew the situation better than she.

"Follow me, please," Bellatrix said as she walked into the room to their left. "I suppose you received a letter from your mother today, Sirius. Did Aunt Livia have anything interesting to say?"

"Nothing as interesting as Cousin Andromeda's news," Sirius replied. The group stopped and Lily felt like they were talking in a code she couldn't decipher.

Lily was glad to be wearing her formal, expensive bride's maid dress. Otherwise she would have truly felt out of place when she felt a tug behind her naval from a Portkey activating and found herself standing in one of the largest sitting rooms Lily had ever seen. She imaged Buckingham Palace had a lot of rooms like this, full of hardwood floors, old patterned rugs, and paintings ten feet tall. She doubted the Queen's paintings moved, but she'd also learned not to assume anything about who dealt with magic and who found it odd. 

"Do you and Andromeda write frequently?" Bellatrix asked in that subtly-interested voice as she started walking again. From the way Sirius didn't even glance at the woman, whom Lily supposed was his cousin, she figured he was fairly familiar with this mansion.

"Not often," Sirius said, "but we do write one another with important news."

"Like when you were Sorted?" Bellatrix asked sweetly, turning left. Lily had to jog to keep up with the pair of them.

"Yes," Sirius agreed with his fake happy voice that made Lily wish to hear a Mandrake's cry. "And events like Sunday when-- oh. I suppose Cousin Andromeda wouldn't want you to find out from me, would she? But I'm sure she'll write you with the news, won't she, Bellatrix?"

The gorgeous woman stopped walking and turned to face him. "I'm sure I'll find out about it."

"I'm sure you will," Sirius agreed as Gertrude and a woman who could have been no one other than Mrs. Wrightman entered the study where Bellatrix had led them, and Lily wasn't sure if she was glad or not. Yes, she was happy that Sirius and his cousin stopped sniping at each other, but Mrs. Wrightman perturbed Lily on sight. Lily assumed the woman was Mrs. Wrightman not because she and Gertrude looked alike -- they didn't really, except for the light blue eyes -- but because she walked with the same grace, poise, and perfect posture as Gertrude. Lily sort of wanted to trip them both just to see how they would handle it.

"Hello, Mr. Black," Mrs. Wrightman said, inclining her head.

"He is no longer recognized by the name," Bellatrix said. Mrs. Wrightman raised an eyebrow that would have made Lily feel very uncomfortable if it had been directed at her. In fact, it almost did anyway. Why was Lily in this situation? Sirius could have insulted his cousin and faced the Wrightmans by himself while Lily was at the reception eating chocolate wedding cake.

"Yet he is still recognized as a guest of the Wrightman family," Mrs. Wrightman replied. "As such, he deserves respect."

Lily held back the urge to stick her tongue out at Bellatrix. In the meantime, Sirius was busy fulfilling his socially obligatory introductions.

"Mrs. Wrightman, this is Lily Evans," Sirius said, gesturing to Lily, who smiled at her. Lily turned to Gertrude.

"Gertrude, right?" Lily asked, deciding that Gertrude's mother did not need to know that they knew each other. "I'm a prefect, too."

Sirius smirked, then glanced at Gertrude. Lily wondered if she'd just made a horrible, socially unacceptable mistake. She was starting to regret speaking when she realized that was idiotic. What did she care what these people thought about her and her manners? What did she care if she broke all of their secret social rules? She certainly didn't want to keep their company much longer than necessary.

"Evans?" Mrs. Wrightman asked, looking at Lily with distaste.

"Yes," Lily said with her brightest smile. "It's a very common name, like Smith or Jones. There are thousands of us, all Muggle, of course."

Looking like she had just swallowed one of Sirius and James's charmed Chocolate Frogs, Mrs. Wrightman told Gertrude that she and Bellatrix had to discuss something or other (Lily was sure it was an excuse to get the hell out of the 'Mudblood Room'), leaving the three of them staring awkwardly at one another.

"So, this has been really fun," Lily said dryly, turning back to her friends once the older women were gone.

"What are you doing here, Sirius?" Gertrude asked. Yep, Lily felt very necessary. "You know you shouldn't--"

"I received a letter from my mother today."

"Which you left it open on your bed at the Potters'," Gertrude said. Sirius looked questioningly at her. "James Potter has been waiting in the kitchen for over an hour for you to arrive."

"James is here?" both Sirius and Lily asked. Gertrude nodded.

"Do you want me to go and fetch him?" Gertrude asked snidely. It was probably the first time Lily had ever heard Gertrude make an almost-joke. Lily was a little proud of her for the effort.

"Snide comments work for you, Gertrude," Lily complimented. "That humor goes well with the whole snooty-heir thing."

"If you could fetch him, that would be divine," Sirius said condescendingly. He had been in a bad mood this morning and after that wonderful discourse with his cousin, Sirius seemed ready to blow something up. Soon.

"This was not my choice, Sirius," Gertrude said as she turned to leave. "Nor was it much of a surprise considering current trends."

Gertrude left then, pushing open the heady wooden doors and letting them fall shut behind her. 

"Condescending meanly does not work for you, Sirius," Lily said, shaking her head. "You're more the inappropriate-comment-to-make-people-laugh-in-shock type."

"Listen, when Gertrude comes back, we're probably going to leave to talk in private--"

"And leave me here with James? This was a setup. You dragged me out of my sister's wedding reception for a setup!"

"No, I didn't."

"Then why did you bring me here at all?" Lily snapped. "To feel intimidated by this home and these uptight people with whom you seem so familiar? Was this to show me just how much I don't belong in proper society?"

"Lily, don't be stupid."

"I'm not being stupid," Lily said, slapping his hand away from her face, "and I'm not really intimidated, either. You know why, Sirius? It's because I don't like these people, and I don't want them in my life. I have no desire to impress them. None. I just want to throw things at them. Small Muggle _gooey_ things."

"I know you do. That's why I asked you to come. You remind me that this world and these people don't have to be my beginning and end."

"No, wait, what does that mean?"

"You," Sirius said, extending his hands toward her, "just by standing next to me, remind me that there are amazing people like you and James in the world who don't care about social protocol or hereditary obligation, who would tell Mrs. Wrightman that they're from a Muggle family just to annoy her. I needed to know that there were different people in the world."

"And I just exude difference?"

"Gertrude told me what you did for Mrs. Crouch," Sirius said, as if that were any sort of answer.

"What?" Subject switch much?

"And she told me about the Ball and about your injuries--"

"Do you two ever discuss anything that doesn't involve me?" Lily asked, not particularly bothered by the fact that Sirius knew what had happened. He wasn't the judging type. Well, he was, but not with her.

"Lily, I'm-- I'm sorry."

"What? Why?"

"It was my fault."

"Oh. Are you a Death Eater? Did you curse me?" Lily asked sarcastically, strongly reminded of Christian apologizing like he was the Dark Lord himself.

"I knew about the Ball," Sirius said, glancing at the door through which Gertrude had exited and ignoring Lily's snarky comment. "I heard my parents talking about it on New Year's Eve, saying that this would be one Ministry Ball that would make headlines for very different reasons. They'd been warned not to go, and I didn't tell anyone. If I'd told someone instead of just screaming at them and running away, things might have been different and-- I'm sorry."

Lily felt like she had been punched in the stomach.

"What?" 

"It was my fault you were hurt so much this year."

"Oh, come on," Lily said, trying to sound casual. Trying to remember he wasn't to blame. "I know you think you're something amazing, but you're no Dark Lord. That takes a special kind of crazy that most can only imitate."

"Lily, you and I are very funny, but Voldemort, he's an evil bastard, and he's tearing my family apart. You saw Bellatrix. She's become this unbearable bitch, all because of him. I want to kill him. I'm going to."

"Kill him with kindness," Lily muttered mockingly. Sirius looked at her. "My mother used to say that to me when I was dealing with a bully: kill them with kindness, love them so much that they--"

"Lily--"

"Or you could pelt him to death with chocolate frogs--"

"Lily, I'm not joking. I'm going to--"

"No, Sirius, you _are_ joking! You must be joking, because otherwise you may be one of the stupidest people I've ever met!"

"I'm going to find a way to--"

"Don't finish that sentence. Don't you _dare_ finish that sentence, Sirius Black."

"I will, Lily. I'll destroy him."

"Shut up, Sirius," Lily snapped, starting to really freak out. "Shut up. You're seventeen years old and little good to anyone if you're dead."

"What? Are you afraid to talk about him, too?" Sirius asked vehemently. Lily resisted the urge to scream just as she managed to keep herself from cursing Sirius.

"Of course I'm not afraid to talk about him!" Lily said. "He's just a man. Just one stupid man."

"One man that I will stop."

"Alone?"

"It's the best way."

"You're a moron."

"He's ruining my family."

"And he nearly killed me! So what? You think that gives me the right to be stupid? No, it doesn't. It means I'll fight him with everything I have, but not like an idiot. I'm not going to run after him unprepared. I'm not going to give him the satisfaction of letting the attack make me irrational."

"You--" Sirius tried to interrupt.

"No. Be quiet. You're the rashest person I know. You'd duel him alone tomorrow if you had the chance, because you never think anything through," Lily said. "So you have to promise me right now that you'll talk to someone first, talk to me, talk to James, talk to anyone."

"That's the most ridiculous --"

"You rush into everything, you rushed into coming here without thinking. Promise me you won't run off without--"

"I can't promise you something like--"

"He killed the Prewetts, Sirius!" Lily snapped, looking up into her friend's eyes. "He killed an Auror and his wife. He killed the Auror Director."

Sirius's smooth face hardened. "I can hurt him on my own."

"I don't want you to die! I know that things are getting worse and that I will have to face death, but I swear I will never forgive you if you die because you refused to call me or James because you wanted to face this threat alone!"

"I see you've begun an interesting conversation in my absence," Gertrude said, walking back into the room, James in tow. Lily's eyes locked on him and could not leave his face. He was so cute. Handsome. Good looking. Gorgeous. He was what she needed to focus on as she worked to push the memories of the Ball out of her mind. She needed something solid on which to focus, something good, something she could trust in as she tried to forget the anger was coursing through her veins.

The way James stared at her as he entering the room wasn't exactly making it an easier to breathe, but it was making it easier to forget unpleasant argument.

It didn't occur to her until much later that she had never secured Sirius's promise.

"Lily?" James asked, staring at her. "What are you doing here?"

"Apparently offering moral support to anyone who asks," Lily said, glaring at Sirius before returning her attention to James. "You?"

"Waiting to offer moral support to someone who never asks," James replied, shrugging and grinning at her. It was so easy, looking at him, to feel her anger and desperation and fear all slip away. It was so easy to look at James and feel like all of her problems could disappear. Was this what Sirius had meant when he said he needed to know that people like them existed?

"What a coincidence," Lily mused, glancing at Gertrude and Sirius, who were looking at each other. "Do you think they want us to leave?"

"Probably," James said, "but do you really want to wander around this estate alone?"

"This _estate_? No. There are probably booby traps for Muggle-borns everywhere."

"True."

"Sirius, would you like to speak in private?" Gertrude asked, looking at Lily as if for approval. Lily nodded, glancing around the room for a comfortable place to sit. Deciding the couch was too far away and that nothing would bother Mrs. Wrightman more than finding Lily lying on her carpet, Lily sat down on the ground. James followed suit.

Gertrude eyebrows pinched together and her lips went thin, but she couldn't seem to find the words to voice her disapproval before Sirius placed a hand on her lower back and pushed her out of the room.

"You think she's going to explode thinking about us sitting on the ground?" Lily asked, running her hands over the thick carpet.

"Possibly. But it’s so comfortable.”

"Well, I don't want Gertrude to explode, but if her mother did, I wouldn't exactly mind," Lily noted, looking up at the pale pastel ceiling. "I don't think I've ever met anyone I disliked faster and for less apparent reasons than Mrs. Wrightman."

"Obviously you haven't met anyone from Sirius's family," James said, leaning back on his elbows and stretching his legs in front of him.

"Oh, I disliked Sirius's cousin Bellatrix on sight too, but I knew exactly why: she was uptight, spoke cuttingly, tried to embarrass Sirius, mocked his Muggle clothing, and looked like she could have killed someone at the mention of her sister."

"When did you meet Bellatrix?" James asked, worry etching across his face. Lily's heart beat a bit faster at his concern.

"She was here, showed us in," Lily said, nodding at the door through which they’d entered. "You've been here an hour and didn't notice her?"

"I naturally avoid the smell of evil bitches.”

“That’s convenient.”

“And dead useful. Besides, I was in the kitchen where that woman has never deigned to go. Gertrude sent the house-elves to led me to a smaller room to wait for you and Sirius to finish your chat."

"That seems unnecessarily complicated." Lily looked over at the ornate windows. “Which, of course, is very much in character for Gertrude."

James nodded. "She and Sirius would have truly been a meeting of the Titans. Their house-elves would have been very busy."

"What do you mean?"

"Didn't he tell you why he was here?"

Lily shrugged, sat up and folded her legs under her to face James. "Bellatrix mentioned something about a letter from his mother that wasn't elaborated on. So what was it?"

"Nothing."

"James, don't 'nothing' me," Lily said, tapping her forefinger against his arm. "He dragged me here out of my sister's wedding reception and I'd like to know why. I'm sure he'll tell me eventually."

James shook his head and moved his hand out of her reach. "Then you can wait for him to--"

"Or I could just start guessing," Lily said. "Was it to yell at Gertrude? To pledge his undying love for her? To formulate a plan to blow up his cousin and her mother? To overthrow a government of some kind?"

James smiled. "We only plot to overthrow governments in the winter, as is tradition."

Lily continued with a grin. "Was it to create the world's largest ball of yarn?”

“Did that second year.”

“To order some sushi from the restaurant in Japan that her father knows? Was it to play some chess or billiards?"

"We do have those games at my house. Coming here would be superfluous."

“Big word.”

“I’m trying to distract you with my vocabulary.”

“Telling me that lessens the likelihood of your plan succeeding,” Lily pointed out.

James smiled and inclined his head to her. “Point taken.”

“So, the reason he’s here?”

“It's his to tell you, though I don't know why she wouldn't have expected it."

"That's vague and unhelpful."

"His mum wrote him this morning to tell him their arranged marriage was officially cancelled. He'd been expecting it for a while, but--"

"Arranged marriage?" Good thing they were sitting down already or Lily might have fallen over from shock.

James nodded.

“To Gertrude?” Lily asked. James nodded again. “Sirius and Gertrude.”

James was smirking now. “Yes, moron.”

"Shut it. How would I have known that?" Lily asked, throwing her arms out in frustration. "Sirius doesn't trust me enough to share something like that and Gertrude would never bring that up. Ever." Another thought occurred to her. "Did they ever date?"

"That isn't how arranged marriages work," James answered. "Not in the magical world anyway and certainly not between the old families."

"But," Lily said, trying to process all of this information, "did they ever like each other?"

"Again, that’s pretty irrelevant. It's been arranged since they were babies. They became friends because of the amount of time they spent together as children. Or at least, they became acquaintances, but after the Sorting, things between them changed. And with New Year's--"

"It was no longer proper for them to see each other," Lily finished, remembering Gertrude's words from that night so many moths before. And then she remembered Sirius's sad face. "If he knew it was coming, why he's so out of sorts?"

"His mother had some other choice things to write," James said, grimacing. Lily leaned back on her hands. Gertrude and Sirius? The idea seemed too absurd to-but then it made a sort of sense, too, didn't it? Thinking about the two of them together, Lily started to snicker.

"What are you laughing at?" James asked.

"The first years had no idea," Lily said, smiling. "They thought I was the big competition, but it was really Gertrude Wrightman, queen of Slytherin. No wonder his mother was furious about the engagement prank a few years back, she thought he was undermining a powerful pureblood marriage."

"Oh, yes, Livia was less than thrilled."

"You call her Livia?" The friendship between Sirius and James had been one of the first things Lily noticed about James, and definitely one of the things she found so attractive about him; it was nice to see such loyalty between two blokes.

"I know her well enough to call her a bitch, but I'm trying to be polite around you," James said, turning to look at the door. Lily did too, wondering where Sirius and Gertrude could have been. A group of bay windows on the opposite wall showed a lot of land behind the house and Lily had to wonder what the Wrightmans did for a living. Did they simply inherit all of this?

"Can you imagine if they lived here together?" Lily asked suddenly. "And their children! Their children would have been _beautiful_."

“Girls are so weird,” James said, shaking his head.

“They would have been!”

"Their children would have been considered magical royalty as the heirs to these two houses, with connections in every Ministry department and every old family," James said. "With Gertrude and Sirius as their parents, no one except maybe Lucius Malfoy, as a close cousin-in-law, would have dared challenge them."

"Sure," Lily said, looking around, "but I sincerely doubt anyone would have been having a jolly old time living in this house. Even Sirius."

"Imagine the parties Gertrude and Sirius might have had,” James said jokingly. “Maybe we ought to suggest that Sirius reunite with his family."

Lily looked over at the grand piano in the corner of the room and barely refrained from laughing. Of course the Wrightmans had a grand piano. Of course. They probably also had a crystal chess set. That thought reminded Lily of her conversation with Gertrude about chess, the one that had evolved into a conversation about James and the way he made people feel like he understood and accepted them no matter what.

“Do you think he wanted to marry her?” Lily asked after a moment.

“Why would he? He’s got me now,” James said, grinning at her. Sirius was losing his childhood a piece at a time, and James Potter was there to give him something new to replace it with. Lily wished she could tell James how amazing she thought he was, how much she appreciated the person he’d become when she wasn’t looking. He was no longer that scrawny boy who’d fallen so hard for himself in fifth year. He’d grown taller and kinder. The students looked up to him, thought he was brilliant. And he _was_ brilliant, both at school and at Quidditch. Girls from every house liked him, and Lily didn't yet understand quite why he had decided to chase after her, but she didn’t mind. Not at all.

"Why are you dressed like an asparagus wrap?" James asked, glancing down at her dress. Lily laughed.

"Note one: never compare a girl to an appetizer."

"Duly noted," James said, "but why do you look like an asparagus wrap?"

"This is my bride's maid dress. My sister Petunia loved it, and since she was the bride and the one that ultimately needed to be happy, I wore it. Mainly to keep her from harping."

"Nice." A few more minutes passed as the clock struck the hour with all of the ridiculous pomp that Lily would have expected from a clock in this house, swinging gold pendulums and all.

"You make Head Boy?" Lily asked.

"Yes," James said, sounding surprised that she'd guessed. But at Lily stared up at the ceiling, Lily remembered talking with Gertrude earlier that year about Hogwarts already having a leader, about how the younger years looked up to James and the older years loved him. Hell, everyone seemed to love him.

"You make Head Girl?"

"Yes," she replied, nerves and pride warring within her. The students didn't love her. And she didn't know how to make them love her either. She had some respect from the younger years who only knew of her because of the rumors about the Ball, F.A.D., and Sirius Black, who many thought was her boyfriend. The prefects already looked on her with scorn, annoyed with her lack of attention in the meetings. How was she supposed to convince them all that she was a good leader?

“Don’t worry about a thing,” James said with a gleam in his eye. “I plan to frighten all of the prefects into submission within the first hour. They’ll fear us beyond all others.”�

Lily smiled. “Good because I expect you to do all the work. I just want the credit.”

"Pretend all you want, Asparagus Girl, but I know that under that heinous green dress is a girl just waiting to spend every waking moment pouring over prefect reports, points totals, patrol schedules, meeting planning sessions, meetings themselves--"

Lily’s groan stopped halfway through the list.

"I hadn't thought about that!" Lily said happily, as she backed away from him smiling. "We can cancel meetings!"

"Or,” James said lightly, “we could call pointless ones to bother the younger years."

Lily's smile grew. "This is going to be brilliant! And to think I wanted to give Gertrude the job."

James gaped at her. "You thought about giving up the opportunity to patrol with me again?"

"Well, I didn't want to make you loose too many sickles," Lily said, playing along. "It was embarrassing how bad you were at giving out dares."

"Well, I'd be fine with losing a sickle to you if it involved tackling Filch or kissing you," James said. “Preferably at the same time.”

“That would take some serious logistical planning.”

“Luckily, we’re really, really smart.”

“And Filch is extraordinarily stupid.” He laughed and the sound of it made Lily tingle all over. How was it possible to be so happy to be able to simply talk to James?

She looked at him, still loving the feeling of his right hand holding her behind her back, and said, trying to sound casual, "By the way. Your Muggle Studies essay was pretty great.”

He looked back at her. "It took forever to finish.”

“You needed to do some research. Makes sense.”

James looked at her, surprised, questioning. “Really?”

“Yep,” Lily said, smiling at James, the bloke she thought she had fallen for at fifteen, the bloke she fell for again at seventeen in deserted corridors. She’d forgiven him completely.

A tiny, greenish house-elf popped into the room in between Lily and James, effectively terrifying them and stopping the conversation as they jumped apart.

"Mistress says that Miss Lily is to be leaving and Mister Potter is to be seeing to Mister Black," said the elf

"Oh," Lily said; she was being dismissed. By a house-elf.

"I need to talk to him," James said, looking at Lily.

"I know. I just didn’t expect to be kicked out like this.”

“I’ll hex him for you."

“Aww. You’re the sweetest.”

James smiled at her as he leaned over the house elf, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. "You need to get back to your sister's wedding reception anyway."

Lily couldn't keep the stupid grin off her face no matter how hard she tried. One simple kiss on the cheek and she was mindless. 

"I suppose I do," she said. She didn’t want to leave.

"I'll see you September 1st, when we lead the school into ruin."

"Dumbledore won't know what hit him until our maniacal laughter reaches his office," Lily said, smiling. "See you then, James."

And James started off on his quest to console angry his best friend and Lily to congratulate her sister on her perfectly predictable wedding.


	25. Try Again

Returning to the reception was a disaster.

“You left! We couldn’t find you!” her father raged.

”You ran off to be with that boy?” Petunia hissed, his narrow eyes barely cracked open in her fury.

“No. Yes. But not like that.”

”Like what? A common slag? At my wedding! You had to make it about you!”

“He needed me.”

”We don't want your excuses,” her father said. So Lily sat silently at a table with her parents as the reception came to a close and Petunia and Vernon said goodbye to guests.

"I cannot believe you ran off," Mrs Evans said once again, lips pursed and hands clasped. "How did you think we wouldn't notice?"

"It is a rather large reception," Lily said.

"You better watch your tone, Lily Marie Evans. This is no time to try our patience."

"This is your sister's wedding reception. Couldn't you have at least tried to respect that?" Mr. Evans asked with that narrow-eyed look that Petunia could imitate so perfectly. "For once, couldn't you have let her have her moment without begrudging her?"

"I don't begrudge her," Lily said, feeling ill at the thought that her father could think that.

"Petunia was worried sick." Mrs. Evans shook her head at her younger daughter. Petunia was giving an awkward hug to Vernon's mother at the door. It looked as if the older woman were trying to eat Petunia.

"I didn't mean to hurt her," Lily said, tired. Her day had started with bridges built between her and Petunia, with Sirius at the door, and an ugly green dress to wear. She had watched her older sister marry a man that adored her and then gone to the party to celebrat. But in the cold, white light of the ballroom, Lily had chosen to leave with her friend rather than stay for her sister. There weren't words to fix that, and Lily knew it, had known it when she made the choice. But she went anyway, and she supposed she should think about why that was.

"Are you even listening to me, Lily Marie?" Mrs. Evans asked, shaking her hands. Lily tried to focus on her mother, but it was nearly impossible. She couldn't help remembering Gertrude Wrightman's magical home and Sirius's cousin, the beautiful demon; Sirius's tired face and his request for help; James and the letter he had sent her. She thought about Sam and how Lily would have left the reception for her, too, if she had asked it of Lily. She thought about her Head Girl badge and Voldemort and the Death Eaters that had attacked her. She thought about Sirius saying he was going to kill Voldemort and how she would have to fight to protect her friends.

As her mother told her why she was in trouble, Lily thought about how relieved she had been to see her parents at St. Mungo's after the attack at the Ball. And then how lost and angry she had felt when she realized that they thought she was fine.

"Couldn't you have been happy for your sister and put your own feelings aside?" Mark Evans seemed to think Lily did this to spite her sister, and Lily didn't think that was fair at all.

"I was happy for Petunia. I _am_ happy for her," Lily said, wanting to bang her head against the table and then cry in a corner for a bit. This was so frustrating. "I helped out as much as I could with this wedding, but when my friend said he needed me, I was there for him."

"Is that how I raised you? To put friends before family?" He had raised her to protect people, and that was what she had been doing. "I know you spent a lot of time with your boyfriend last holiday instead of us, but I didn't think you'd ever go so far as to skip your own sister's reception for some boy--"

"Sirius isn't some boy. He's one of my best friends, and he was really hurt about his arranged marriage being called off this--"

"People don't have arranged marriages anymore, Lily. You need not make up ridiculous excuses--"

"The old magical families do," Lily said, irked that her mother thought she knew everything about the world when Lily was living in a completely foreign one. And it hurt that her parents both glanced around as if to see if anyone had overheard.

"So you went to his fiancé's house?" Mrs. Evans asked, obviously not believing her. Lily nodded anyway. "Where was this house then?"

"It's-- well, I don't know exactly. We Portkeyed over there." How hard did it have to be to explain all of these magical facts to her parents, to explain arranged marriages and Portkeys?

"If you wanted to spend time with Sirius you could have stayed here or told us where you were going or--"

"I don't like Sirius!" Lily exclaimed. Why couldn't they _listen_? "But he needed me."

"You selfish, ungrateful freak," Petunia hissed, calm but for the fury in her voice, the clipped language. All of the guests had left. "You ruined my reception."

"Don't call me a freak," Lily said, beyond angry as she stood. “I'm sorry I left, but don't call me--"

“I’ll call you what I want. You left my--“

"You don’t even care that I left! You didn't want me here.”

"Of course I didn’t. I knew you’d ruin it just like you ruin everything.”

“I fail to see how my leaving--"

“Mum turned off the music and asked if anyone had seen you. Do you know how humiliating that was? She was about to phone the police when you waltzed in like nothing was wrong," Petunia said, advancing threateningly. Vernon, Lily noticed, didn't say a word.

"Nothing _was_ wrong," Lily said, frustrated, near tears with lack of sleep, and desperate to make her family understand. "I'm seventeen years old--"

"Nothing more than a spoiled child!"

"You don't know me. Don't know what it's like for me to have to be here and lie to all these people who keep asking about my special boarding school."

"You are such an ungrateful snot. I put you in my wedding. I chose the gown colors for you! And you return the favor by leaving before you could give the speech?" Petunia asked. Lily's heart froze. She had forgotten. The stupid Maid of Honor speech. Oh damn.

"Oh, Petunia," Lily said, her anger and frustration pushed aside forcefully. "I'm so sorry. I forgot. I just-- I forgot."

"Sorry fixes nothing," Petunia said, turning her back on her sister and marching up to Vernon. "It doesn't matter. You don't matter. I'm leaving on my honeymoon. Hope you never have to deal with being near my friends again."

Petunia left shortly after that, angry and unresponsive. Vernon followed in her wake. Lily stared after them, wishing she deserved to be forgiven.

 

**~*~*~**

After a tense car ride home and another strict talking to by her parents, Lily was sent to her room with orders think about what she did, as if she might be able to think abut anything else.

After hours of aggravating non-sleep, Lily walked quietly down to breakfast with dark circles under her eyes and a very guilty conscience. No one was awake yet and so Lily mechanically made herself some toast and tea, and sat at the kitchen table, wanting to be hungry.

Footsteps on the stairs made her turn to see her father in his dressing gown looking tired. Lily looked down at the table.

"Good morning," he said, walking past her to the fridge.

"Morning."

Her father poured himself some tea, and sat across the table from her in an uncomfortable silence.

"I feel horrible about what I did yesterday," Lily finally said, looking up at him.

"You need to tell Petunia that." He glanced down at the paper on the table.

"Dad," Lily said, surprised to find tears in her own eyes. She was tired and upset and feeling so very, very guilty. "This is the first time I've ever done anything like this."

"Well it was a hell of a first time."

"Don't you think I had a good reason to leave? I have chosen family over friends at every turn except this one."

"And last holiday when we didn't see you."

How could her father not understand how difficult this was for Lily? She clenched her teeth and whispered, "I don't know how to make this work anymore."

"How to make what work?" Mark Evans flipped the page in the paper.

"These two lives I lead," Lily said, hands wrapped around her cup, desperate for the warmth. "I don't know how to reconcile my life with my family and with the world my friends live in."

He lowered the paper and, over the top of it, said, "I know it's difficult, but--"

"No, Dad, it's not just difficult," Lily said, annoyed. "It's impossible."

"Nothing's impossible. I would have thought you'd know that by now, especially with the magic you're learning."

"But that's just it!" Lily exclaimed, frustrated beyond belief by her father's ignorance, angry with herself for never having taken the time to tell her parents the truth. "There _are_ impossible things. It's impossible to counter the Killing Curse or reverse the affects of prolonged Unforgivable exposure. Magic doesn't cure Dragon Pox or burnt down buildings. It doesn't make people immortal or take away addiction. It doesn't eliminate poverty or hunger. It just-- It just makes some normal things easier."

Her father took that in and then asked, "Where is all this coming from, Lily?"

Lily looked at her father -- the man she'd trusted to always protect her, the one whose strong arms had carried her over a number of puddles, who insisted that he could always look out for his baby girl -- and she found herself wanting to forget this whole conversation, to protect him from the truth about Voldemort and his Death Eaters, to let him continue to believe that magic was a save-all.

Telling Mark Evans the truth, Lily had decided years ago, would only hurt him. He was comfortable believing that her injuries had been minor, believing that her school a fantasyland where there was nothing but good, knowing that magic was easy and beautiful. He didn't want to know about broken ribs, Muggle-born slurs, Death Eaters, or the multitude of problems she faced without him.

"What's wrong?" he asked, staring intently at his daughter.

"Nothing," Lily said, looking down at her tea.

"Lily," her father began, but he said nothing more. There was a wall between them now and they both knew it. It was the wall that Lily had felt growing throughout the course of the year was complete.

Then Lily looked at her father and decided that that was crap.

So she took a deep breath, and began to hack away at it.

"Dad, I was really hurt at the Ball," Lily said, hands so tight around the cup she thought it might shatter from the pressure.

"We saw you at the hospital, Lily. We know you were hurt."

"No," Lily said, hating that he thought so, "you don't."

"Lily, if this is an attempt to justify--"

"I shattered three ribs, punctured a lung. A hex burned my hand when I tried to grab a woman's shoe." Lily's fingers ran over the back of her hand and she couldn't lift her eyes. "A curse hit me they couldn't fix, and I still have pain in chest because of it."

"Lily--"

"I couldn't breathe when I woke up, and you and Mum were just standing there chatting with the healers and I couldn't breathe."

He grabbed her hand, and she let herself cry as she told him everything. She told her dad about Death Eaters and the Prewetts and Christian and the Inquisition and the Wizard's Debt she would not accept. She told him about Polyjuice potions and patrols and Head Girl appointments. She told him about Sirius Black and the way his friendship saved her. She talked about Gertrude and the strange challenge she had laid before Lily, asking her to prove that fighting against Voldemort was not a stupid decision. She told him about Tracy not understanding and Sam lying to her and hiding from the coming war. She told him about a year of school that had changed her life, given her a focus for the future, and asked her to lead a school through turmoil.

There was a long pause after her story was finished. 

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" His voice cracked on the final word, and Lily rubbed her eyes.

"I thought I couldn't."

Mark shook his head and opened his mouth a couple of times before saying, "I'm sorry that you have more trust in your friends than in your own parents."

"I didn't want you to worry."

"We have every right to worry," he said, sounding indignant. "You've faced prejudice and death because we let you go to that school." His eyes unfocused for a moment. "Your mother said you looked like you had lost weight. I thought you'd-- I don't know what I thought, but it wasn't this."

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not, Lily. You've obviously had to deal with a lot--too much at your age--but now we have to fix that."

What did that mean? "You can't just fix this."

"We can try," Mr. Evans said, standing. "You're not going back to that school."

What? "You can't do that."

"Yes, I can."

"No. I refuse to let you," Lily snapped, surprised by her own conviction.

"You are still my daughter, and you _will_ listen to me."

"You can't make me stay away."

"We'll make arrangements for you to go to Petunia's old school. I know it's late in the year, but we've donated quite a bit of money to them over the years and surely they'll--"

"I'm not leaving Hogwarts!"

"It'll be fine," he said. "I know you haven't exactly taken the right classes."

"I haven't taken any of the classes or the tests or anything!" Lily said. "And even if I had, I wouldn't go! My place is at Hogwarts."

"Your place is here. With us!" Mark snapped. Silence filled the kitchen as Lily looked at her proud father sitting in his bathrobe on a small wooden chair at the breakfast table, cold toast in front of both of them. "This is the only way I know to protect you."

"I don't want to be protected from this."

"Lily--"

"No. Taking me out of school won't make Voldemort go away. Won't make the prejudice go away. It'll just prove that Muggle-borns are scared."

"You should be scared."

"It’s my home," Lily replied softly.

Her father shook his head. "You'll be happy here." He stood. "I'll phone them right now."

"Don’t," Lily said, stopping her father in his tracks as he turned to face her.

"I'm not giving you a choice."

"There isn't a choice to make. I’m an adult in my world, and my place is at Hogwarts. I won't let you or anyone keep me from it," Lily said. The defiant words tore through her throat and slashed her mouth as they escaped. They sounded vulgar to her own ears.

"Go to your room," Mark Evans snapped at her as he had never snapped before.  

**~*~*~**

It was almost three hours later before Lily's mother poked her head into her room, looking cleaned up and like she had expected to spend the day at the market. Lily imagined she had been rather surprised to find Lily's father fuming in the kitchen calling schools about admissions as she had heard him doing ever since he'd sent her upstairs.

"You and your father had a row?" Mrs. Evans asked, though Lily knew that her father had most certainly explained everything. That was how they dealt with arguments, as a unified front that pretended to be divided. Lily had forgotten.

"He doesn't want me to go back to school because of the war," Lily said. They both knew her parents were in cahoots.

Her mother nodded. "He doesn't want his little girl to face danger when he can stop it."

"This isn't a fight I'll hide from, nor a world I will give up on," Lily said sternly.

Her mother seemed taken aback and took a few minutes to fold the clothes lying on the back of Lily's desk chair and on her dresser. "Your father thinks other people will fight."

Lily remembered the Ball and the scramble for Portkeys. "Maybe. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t."

"You're seventeen years old," her mother said, hands grabbing the wrinkled dress. "This isn't your fight."

"It's exactly my fight." Lily found her own resolve surprising. When had she decided all this? She supposed it had been around the time when the orange-eyed German woman had told her she could run and she had decided she never would.

"War is not a game, Lily, and if you really knew what it was like, you would understand our fear.”

Lily had no response.

Mrs. Evans wiped her hands on her skirt and stared at them for a moment before looking up at Lily with her bright green eyes, fire within them. "We'll talk about this in the morning."

And they did talk about it in the morning and the day after and the week after. They talked about lying to family and death tolls and prejudice. They talked for the first time about the classes that Lily took in a way that made her believe her parents would remember them as more than just a rabbit-out-of-a-hat tricks as they secretly had before. They went on day trips to talk, her father taking the afternoon off to drive to the coast or tourist traps they'd never taken the time to see, and in the car they came to know one another again, parents and child. They talked until Petunia came home two weeks later and looked mad enough to spit when she saw the way her parents and Lily had connected.

They talked until her father's stubbornness melted just a bit and the day before school was to begin again, he came into her room as she was shoving everything into her trunk.

He sat on her bed and said, in quiet, clear words, "I cannot lose you."

Lily dropped the socks she was shoving into her trunk’s corners and launched herself into her father’s arms.

"You won’t.”

“It felt as if I already had, when you told me what was happening for the first time.”

“I was trying to protect you," she mumbled into his shoulder.

"That's my job," he said, pulling back. "I’m supposed to protect you, and I can't even do that because you refused to not go back."

"Do you really expect me to meet a bloke at the butchers? To take the right tests and make the right marks and go to uni and pretend like the world isn't at war? That my best friends aren't fighting?"

Her father looked at her with his deep-set eyes and said, "I wish you would."

Lily slowly shook her head and put her hands in her lap. "I was always meant for freakish things, Dad. You know that."

"You aren't a freak."

"I'm not normal."

"Lily," her father said, her words strained, "please don't--"

"Do you remember telling me," Lily interrupted, "what you told me about the endings of our bedtime stories?"

Mark Evans looked like he wanted to talk more about school, but his face softened a degree. "Yes."

"Every night when you had to stop in the middle of a bedtime story, you would tell me to hope for the ending I wanted, to make my dreams full of happily ever afters." Lily looked down at her nails. "I'm not going to stop hoping now."

He said nothing for a long minute. Just as Lily was starting to wonder if maybe she should say something, he spoke. "Wars never end happily.”

“Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be fought."

"You don't know what you're talking about. It feels like we’re still in the midst of something awful; there is a wall in Berlin and a cold war being fought. So when you tell me that you're hoping for a happily ever after to come from another war--a magical war--I can only tell you that war is never that simple."

Lily knew better than to challenge him.

"When we first learned about you being a witch, I thought that a world with magic would be a world without war," he said. "Which is stupid, but I wanted to believe it."

"It's not stupid."

Mark smiled a small smile, but it faded quickly. "No matter what I say, I know you're going to go back."

Lily blinked back tears. "I am."

He nodded to himself. "Your mother didn't go with her family when they fled the bombings. She worked as an assistant to the mechanics who at an airforce base. She felt better when she was productive, she said, so she stayed while London was terror-bombed and falling apart. I screamed at her to leave, but she just said that if she could help, it was worth the risk."

Lily had always thought of her mother in terms of laundry and shopping and cooking and lectures about sisterly love. It confused her to try to reconcile that woman with the airplane-flying, mechanic’s aid who lived through the destruction of London.

"You have her strength, Lily. Her stubborn determination to do the right thing when all anyone who loves you wants is for you to survive."

"I want to survive too," she said quietly.

Her father's eyes were dull for a moment before he focused on her and they glistened. "There is always hope, and your family is always with you, scared though they might be."

Lily tried not to cry, really she did, but then her father went and added, "And you had better write home more often. Give us news. Keep in touch and never go through this alone. Your mother and I will understand."

Such a surge of pride and happiness and honor went through Lily that she practically leapt out of her seat to wrap him up in a hug. She embraced him for a long, long time and he held on tight.

 

**~*~*~**

She talked to her mother the next morning. They sat in Lily's room as Faith repacked Lily's trunk for the last year and they talked about war and the ways people fight on the front line and behind the scenes. They talked about family and how much Faith wanted Lily to reconcile with her sister, how she wanted her to appreciate Petunia and be happy for her. The conversation happened to quickly for Lily to even find a way to bring up her mother's hidden past and talents. And now Lily Evans lay in the prefect compartment on September first, speeding away from the Muggle world and the parents who loved her enough to make her feel like she could take on the world.

"Hey, Lily," Sirius said, walking into the prefect compartment.

"Sirius!" Lily greeted him happily, standing up and walking over to give him a hug. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you." Sirius smiled. She hadn't seen him since the wedding, though they had written many letters, including a long apology from him for leaving her stranded at Gertrude's.

"Were you really looking for me?" she asked, sitting down. Lily had written him back to tell him she understood, that he didn't need to explain why he'd left her there alone. He'd sent her a box of chocolate frogs that croaked, 'I'm sorry' whenever she touched them. She couldn't bring herself to eat the talking treats.

"Well, actually," Sirius said, sitting opposite her, "I'm looking for James, and I assumed he'd probably be near you."

Lily looked at him, confused. "Why?"

"Do you really need me to answer that?" Sirius asked, giving her an incredulous look. "Where else would he be but beside you?"

"I meant," Lily said, trying to ignore his implications, "why don't you know where he is? Shouldn't you have arrived with him?"

"Oh, no." 

"Don't you live with him?" 

"Sure," Sirius said, looking back at her, "but I've spent the past week with my cousin. Her husband brought me here."

He must have caught her horrified look. 

"Oh, no. Not Bellatrix. She's a nightmare. I was with my cousin Andromeda. She had her second baby a few weeks ago and I went to stay with her family."

"That's adorable."

"The kid's pretty boring. Mostly just sleeps, legs curled up. The four year old followed me around all the time," Sirius said, smiling fondly despite himself. Lily had the feeling that he really adored his second cousins. Or was it first cousins once removed?

"Well, you're just so fabulous. What child could resist?"

"Exactly. And her dad Ted brought me here, a Muggle-born driving me in a Muggle car. Mum would've died on the spot."

"Way to make your Muggle-born friend feel special."

"But you are special if you have the ability to make my mother keel over."

Lily looked at him. "Don't say that."

"Why not?" 

"Because no one wants his own mother dead, no matter how horrible she is," Lily replied, grabbing her satchel and pulling it onto her lap, where she hugged it to her. Sirius and she looked at each other for a long while.

"You really believe that, don't you?" Sirius asked, watching her.

She nodded. "It's true."

"I suppose it might be," said Sirius, looking briefly back out the window and then shaking his head and beginning to smile as he turned and winked at Lily. "Want me to find James for you?"

"What makes you think I haven't already seen him?"

"The state of your clothes."

"Are you suggesting that they would be a bit rumpled if I had run into our esteemed Head Boy?" 

"I'm telling you that your clothes would be in shreds," Sirius replied, a knowing smirk on his face. Lily's smile grew even as she blushed. "I suppose I'll wait here, then, until he arrives and kicks me out."

"He wouldn't kick you out."

"Of course he would. We made a pact."

"Why weren't we friends since first year, Sirius?" It felt so natural to talk to Sirius, to laugh and joke with him. It was hard to imagine that they hadn't been friends forever.

"Probably because you were intimidated by me and couldn't bring yourself to talk to _the_ Sirius Black," Sirius said, shrugging.

"Right, I'd forgotten," Lily said. " _The_ Sirius Black, the one who destroyed the Herbology professor's plant with no qualms. Selfish bloke, that one."

"The green plant! I'd forgotten all about that," Sirius said, smiling.

Lily leaned over and flicked him. "Show a little remorse, even if it's fake. Sprout spent seven years of her life growing that thing."

"Oh, I felt badly about that. Believe me. That's why James and I volunteered in the Green Houses for a month."

"And I'm sure," Lily said, "that neither one of you had any ulterior motives for volunteering."

"Well, we were interested in making miniature replicas of a plant that could change the color of an entire room like that," Sirius said, lost in memory. "It would have been so useful, but then Filch confiscated the prototype we'd spent forever making and we lost our enthusiasm."

"Pity, that."

"I'm sensing some sarcasm," Sirius noted, putting his hands in his pocket only to pull out a long piece of red yarn.

"Seeing as I have been on the receiving end of a number of your inventions, I have to admit that I have no problem with one or two being lost," Lily said. Sirius looked at the yarn, shrugged, and dropped it next to him.

"James did go about this whole thing poorly, didn't he?" Sirius asked, poking the yarn with his wand, finding nothing special, and focusing on Lily again.

"What do you mean?" Lily asked, putting her satchel on the bench beside her.

"Only that James has liked you since he was fifteen and that he did everything possible to make you notice him. It wasn't until this year that we realized your attention wasn't what he needed. He needed to change your opinion of him."

Lily raised her eyebrows. "That was an astute observation."

"It was Gertrude's observation, not mine," Sirius admitted. "On James' birthday she said you only needed a little prodding."

"Your terminology's doing nothing for my ego."

"Pity, that," Sirius intoned. Lily lay down on the bench, resting her head on her bag.

"You've talked to James since we went to Gertrude's, right?" Lily asked, looking up at the ceiling.

"Do hippos secretly want to dance with sugar plum fairies?" 

"I've never understood why you answer questions like that."

"I only answer really stupid, obvious questions like that," Sirius said. "And obviously I've talk to James."

"Since Gertrude's?"

"Yes."

"Oh," Lily said, trying to figure out a way to ask him about James without seeming desperate. Sirius started laughing and Lily lifted her head enough to turn and glare at him.

"Just ask me what you want to know."

"Fine," Lily said, putting her head back down on her hands and staring up at the ceiling. "Did he say anything about me?"

"Do hippos secretly want to dance with sugar plum fairies?"

"That's not becoming any less annoying."

"I know, but honestly, 'Has James said anything about me?' What sort of stupid question is that? James has talked about you for years. You think that'd stop now that he's finally come so close to you?" Sirius sounded like he was shaking his head, but Lily refused to look at him because she knew it would make her grin like an idiot.

"I could be highly freaked out by that information, you know," Lily said, smiling despite her best efforts. James talked about her. He had liked her for years.

"No, you couldn't be, because I know a secret. James told me it."

"Really? What's that?"

"He said you don't really believe he's liked you all this time."

"That's not true," Lily said, sort of offended. But then she started to think about it, started wondering if she would ever really believe that James liked her. "Well, okay, it's sort of true."

Sirius leaned forward on his elbows. "You're not honestly wondering if he likes you now, are you?"

"Well, I gave him the holiday so he could change his mind.” A stab of fear coursed through her. Sirius didn't exactly help the situation by laughing. “Don't laugh.”

"But it's so funny," Sirius said, leaning back. "You're just like him, you know."

"Thanks?"

"You two are going to be so busy," Sirius said. "You're going to have to spend half the time you're together convincing the other one that you still want to be with them. It'll be highly amusing for me, I assure you."

"As long as you're amused, it's all worth it."

"Glad to know I'm such a high priority in your life," Sirius said. Lily wasn't looking at him, but she could see that he was still sitting on the bench across from her with his shoulders back. He didn't even know that it was his etiquette lessons that kept him from wanting to lie down on the bench. Lily thought the irony was ridiculous.

"Everything all right with your sister, by the way?" Sirius asked.

"Yeah," Lily said, not minding the subject change. To tell the truth, the quick pace of her conversations with Sirius was something she loved about their friendship. It was never dull talking to Sirius Black.

"You sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure," Lily said, her good humor diminishing a little. "I'll work this out."

"I didn't mean to make you miss giving your speech at the reception."

"It's my fault, not yours. I should have remembered. I should've told her where I was going. That's what my parents were most upset about. They were worried that I'd been kidnapped or hurt or something."

"And your sister's just angry because..."

"Because she thinks I tried to sabotage her wedding." Lily sighed. This was not something she wanted to talk about. At all.

"That's my fault."

"No it's not," Lily said, exasperated that he kept trying to take the blame for things that he couldn't control. "It's mine and I have to fix it. Not you. Petunia and I will figure this out. In fact, she spoke to our mum about me a couple of times, though Mum was just as mad as Petunia at first. Especially after I accidentally mentioned James's name in conjuncture with where I'd gone off to."

"You mentioned James? Why?"

"Because I'm an idiot. Now my sister's calling both of us names, calling him a hooligan out to ruin perfectly normal people's weddings."

"So she knows him well then."

"She's said some of the nastiest things." Lily couldn't even talk about it. "And right now, I'm not even so sure I'd want to speak with her, you know?"

"Yes," Sirius said. Then, after a moment of thought, he said, "Actually, no, I don't understand. I can't imagine you keeping a grudge."

"She called me a freak, said I was jealous of her normality, told me I was nothing like her, said I have to stay away from her," Lily said, hurt though she tried to hide it.

Sirius nodded. "And my brother told me that knowing I was alive made him feel dirty by association. Everyone says stupid things sometimes, but Petunia's still your family. You'll both work this out."

Across the compartment, sitting by the door, Sirius looked almost vulnerable. He wanted affirmation, it seemed, that not all families had to be torn apart beyond repair.

"She said she feels like she hates me," Lily said.

"Feels like, not does," Sirius said. "My father told me he wanted to kill me. If he'd said he felt like he wanted to kill me, I'd say that was a noticeable improvement."

Lily blinked at her friend. "Your brother and your father are arseholes."

"Yeah," Sirius said, shrugging. A wave of concern and care and love for her friend kept Lily from speaking for a moment. "It's fine. It’s like you said. I feel like I hate some of them right now and I don't want to be associated with any of them, but they're still my family. That matters. Always."

Actually, Lily knew exactly what Sirius meant. She thought of her father at that breakfast table and her mother repacking all of her trunk again. She thought of Petunia right before she walked down the aisle at her wedding, and Lily knew exactly what he meant. Family mattered.

His terribly ingrained sense of duty and loyalty sometimes confused Lily, but right then all she could wonder about was how difficult it must have been for him to decide to run away from home.

"I'll see you at the feast, then," Sirius said, walking to the door just as the first batch of fifth year prefects eagerly entered. They were always the first to arrive.

"I'll see you then," Lily said, waving. He Haven her a two finger solute and they both ignored the knowing looked of the lower years, who were rotten gossips. "Well, hi and welcome to the prefects compartment. We’re all mad here.”

~*~*~

Twenty minutes later, Lily found herself in a compartment full of prefects clumped in groups by house and further segregated by year. They even left spaces on the benches between the groups like dweebs.

She glared and wondered if shed have to confund them all to induce friendship.

And then James Potter came in, and Lily's heart skipped what felt like ten beats as her stomach knotted and a smile spread across her face.

"Hi, everyone. Unbelievably, I'm the Head Boy," James said as he moved to stand next to Lily, his right hand on her lower back. Tingles spread throughout her body. It took Lily a moment to realize she ought to speak instead of just standing around and enjoying the feel of James touching her.

"I'm the Head Girl, Lily Evans, and I wanted it noted how punctual I was," Lily said, a flush creeping onto her cheeks when James started tracing circles on her back with his forefinger.

"We'll start the meeting momentarily," James said, turning to look at Lily with that intense stare, "but first we need to discuss a few things. We haven't seen each other over the holiday, you see."

And with that he traced his hand up Lily's back, down her arm, and then firmly grasped her left hand. It felt like coming home. And when they went into that private Head room - the one in which Lily had found Matt and Diana the year before on the train ride home - Lily had barely a moment to breathe before James shut the door, pinned her against it, and crushed her mouth with his.

His hands pressed against the door on either side of her shoulders. James ran his tongue along her lower lip and Lily wanted nothing more than to pull him closer -- so close that she couldn't breathe, didn't want to breathe. Why had she thought being apart all holiday was so necessary?

He suddenly wrapped his hands around to hold her lower back and pull her as close as she had wanted - needed - to be. She clutched his shoulders and tilted her head up to get better access to his mouth. James helpfully chose to sit on one of the benches lining the room and Lily slipped right onto his lap, wanting nothing more than to kiss his mouth for the rest of the ride.

James thwarted her plans, though, by beginning to kiss the side of her mouth, then her cheek and neck.

"We"--James said between kisses--"have to"--another long kiss on her neck while Lily closed her eyes.

"Run the meeting," Lily finished, placing her hands on his cheeks and pulling him away to look into his eyes. "I know."

"So long as you know," James said, smirking and making Lily want to melt as he leaned in to kiss her once again. And it was so fun, so good, so right. His arms wrapped around her, holding her close to him as they continued to kiss.

But then the train jerked into movement and Lily sadly realized that they really did have a meeting to run.

Just one more minute of snogging. Delightful, fabulous snogging.

"We should skip the meeting," Lily said after that minute was over.

He laughed. “Absolutely not, you reckless nut.”

She kissed him again. “They’re very boring typically. And those idiots aren’t even talking to the other houses. Trust me. Skipping is the right choice.”

“Nope.”

But he didn’t stop her leaning again. And these kisses, they were so intense, filled with more than just three months of frustration. They told of years of longing and obsession, years of watching and wanting so badly to touch. They bespoke fantasies and desires finally fulfilled.

When they pulled apart next, he grinned. “Nice try, Evans, but I have a school to run.”

Lily sighed and slid off his legs, not bothering to pretend that running a prefect meeting was more important than kissing James. He helped matters by standing too. She took a few more deep breaths and his brows came together.

"Do they hurt?" he asked, nodding at her chest. Lily, confused though she was by his comment, smirked.

"Do what hurt? My breasts?" Lily asked, cocking her head. James laughed. He was _so_ adorably hot.

"Your ribs," James said, enunciating clearly as he gave a pointed look toward the area in question. "I wanted to know if I hurt your ribs."

He was worried, in the midst of all of this, about Lily's injury? Lily closed the distance between them and gave him a fast, intense kiss before leaning back and saying, "You most certainly did _not_ hurt me."

"Good," James said rather smoothly, "because I plan to do that to you a lot."

Now it was Lily's turn to smile. "Sure. But only if there’s no boring meeting to run."

James leaned in so that his lips were almost touching hers and said, "I told you, Evans, we’re too amazing to run a boring meeting." He kissed her softly, carefully, completely on the mouth. And when he ended it and she made an unhappy sound, he smirked and said, "You told me so yourself."

Lily leaned against the wall. “I'm coming to realize what a big mistake that might have been."

"You don't know the half of it," he said.

Deciding she should not keep talking to him like this and after making sure she didn't look like she had just snogged the hell out of the Head Boy, Lily turned to open the door, and then paused to ask James over her shoulder, "Right. If I'm the worst Head Girl ever, you'll tell me, right?"

James' smile grew as he said, "Please. If you make an arse of yourself, I'll be laughing too hard to tell you anything."

"Comforting, James, really comforting," Lily said, sliding open the door and reentered the Prefect compartment. 

 

**~*~*~**

After the train stopped and the prefects had filed out of the compartment -- including James who had stepped out to lead first years to the boats -- Lily found a group of third years were jumping out of the train (having decided the stairs were for the weak). James was judging them on showmanship.

"No originality," James said to the boy who had just jumped, shooting a six into the air. Lily smiled.

"And how did _you_ leave the train?" she asked him.

"He did a cartwheel," one of the third years said, awe in his voice. Lily smiled as she listened, looking at James, but he shrugged casually as if he often did acrobatics for younger students. "It was great. We thought his feet would hit the top, but he bent just right." Lily laughed, and James told the third years to find a carriage to ride up to the school. They called out their goodbyes as they raced away.

"He wants to be with his _girl_ friend," the boys whispered loudly enough for James to hear.

"Don't be stupid," the other boy said as they left. "Lily Evans is dating Sirius Black." Which was perfectly funny.

“We could lead them astray. Their third years. Push them into the Forrest’s and see if they’d survive.” James shrugged. "Sometimes you lose a couple newbies. It happens."

"Much too obvious. We’d be caught. I don’t enact plans where I can get caught," Lily replied, smiling.

"We could say we were drunk."

"I don’t see how that makes us look better." They both smirked and turned together to face the mass of students squeezing into various carriages. A pair of first year boys had missed Hagrid's booming voice and instructions so they walked them over to the boats before watching the students leave Hogsmeade in carriages.

"How was your holiday?" James asked, looking entirely too proud of himself.

"Oh, normal," Lily said to bother him. "A bit boring, but then there was the whole thing with Petunia's wedding, meeting her new in-laws, trying on clothes, playing football with my old friends, having a sordid affair with a bloke down the block."

"You think you're funny, don't you?"

"I really do." The rest of the students were settled, so she and James took their place in a carriage with three Hufflepuff sixth year girls.

"Still stubborn then?" she asked.

"Are you joking?" James replied incredulously. "I've been stubborn for two years now. Three months wasn't about to make a difference."

Lily made a happy sound as she leaned her head against the back of the carriage.

"So you see how stupid this holiday break thing way, right?" James asked, leaning toward her.

"No," Lily said, taking his hand in hers. "I needed time to realize that you're Remus." Lily loved how irritated he looked at her response. The two sixth years in the carriage with them also looked confused.

"Let's never have you call me that again," James said, patting her hand.

"Okay, sweetums," Lily said, smirking as she turned to look at the passing scenery. She could almost make out the Quidditch hoops in the distance, but it was hard to tell in the growing dusk.

"We really need new codenames, poppet."

"I like the ones we have," Lily replied, eyes tracing the line of the Forbidden Forrest and swearing she saw something moving in there. James shook her head and chuckled. The carriage bounced along, though the students weren't jostled, and Lily wondered if she could hear clomping noises in front of them. Were these carriages pulled by invisible horses?

"I thought she was dating Sirius Black," whispered one of the sixth years, not seeming to realize that James and Lily could hear everything she said.

"Did they break up?" the other one asked.

"Did she cheat on him with James Potter?"

"I heard that she was with James on the train leaving school last year."

"Maybe that's why he's not with Sirius right now. Maybe they hate each other now."

"That's so romantic." The one girl sighed as if a girl breaking up a best friendship were the most adorable thing she could think to happen.

"They are cute together," said the last of the sixth years, glancing at Lily and James, who were glancing at each other out of the corner of their eyes with barely-suppressed mirth.

James leaned close and whispered, "Did you hear that? We're cute together."

Lily laughed and whispered back, "Cute? Psh. We're effing adorable."

"And quite lovable."

"People probably want to adopt us."

"McGonagall certainly does," James said, nodding.

"We're like a pair of baby penguins," Lily finished, turning back in her seat to rest her head against the carriage. James' silence compelled her to look over at him and at his confused look. She laughed.

"Penguins?" he repeated.

"Penguins are wonderful."

“They’re the worst sort of bird there is,” James complained. “They can’t fly, and they’re half fish or something. They’re gross. What about something cool like a cheetah?”

She gave him a look. “Cheetahs aren’t cute.”

“Baby cheetahs are,” he said, nudging her with his shoulder.

"You’re ridiculous."

“Ridiculously cute. And fierce.”

“If you growl at me ever again, I’m through with you.”

  **~*~*~**

After watching the six years scurry off the spread the word about Lily and James, the pair climbed up the main set of stairs toward the Front Hall. They paused at the doors as James said hello to a couple of people from the Quidditch team. Feeling unnecessary, Lily tried to spot some of her friends.

"Lily!" Christine called out, waving to Lily over the heads of the other students. They shifted through the crowd and embraced.

"Hey Christine," Lily said, pulling back.

"Still a prefect?" Christine asked, pointing to the badge on Lily's robes.

Oh right. Lily still needed to tell all of her friends about that. Oops.

"Actually, funny story," Lily said, self-consciously looking down at her badge. "I'm Head Girl."

"Are you serious?" Christine leaned in to inspect the badge and looking as if she were examining Lily's breasts. How terribly awkward.

"I know," Lily said, taking a step back. "Who'd have imagined me as Head Girl?"

"Matt," Christine said, poking the badge.

Lily slapped her hand away. "What do you mean 'Matt'?"

Christine straightened but kept staring at the badge and then at Lily and then back at the badge as if daring it to change. "He bet me a galleon you'd be Head Girl."

"Really?"

Christine looked petulantly at the badge. "I can't believe you're Head Girl. I was so sure it would be someone else."

"Thanks for the support." Lily tried not to feel too offended by Christine's bluntness as she reminded herself that she too had been convinced it would be someone else. A group of second years passed between them, almost stepping on Lily's toes as they tried to take in the new way of entering the castle. Lily couldn't help but notice how tiny the twelve year olds were.

"I can't believe you're Head Girl," Christine repeated, putting her hands on her hips and acting like Lily had somehow offended her.

"Each time you say that, my confidence grows exponentially."

"Head Girl Lily Evans? It's so odd," Christine said, still staring hard at the badge. It was out of control.

"You're going to dwell on this for a while aren't you?" Lily asked as they went into the castle. The pictures were chatting and a group of ghosts passed them on their way to the hall. It felt like coming home.

"I can't believe--"

"I get it," Lily said as the pair walked into the Great Hall. "Want to know something even odder? James Potter is Head Boy."

Christine stopped walking as she turned to stare at Lily. "What? Since when?"

"Since Dumbledore obviously realized that everyone in this school adores me," James said, walking up to them as they neared the Gryffindor table.

"Really?" Christine asked, shaking her head as she wondered a bit in front of them and moved to sit on the other side of the table. "Lily as Head Girl and James Potter as Head Boy? I owe Matt so much money."

"She's really helped assail my fears about my appointment," Lily whispered to James. They were standing next to the table and a couple of students were pointing at them and whispering, but they ignored them.

"If it makes you feel better, Sirius bet me his soul that I was lying about being Head Boy," James replied, a floating candle right above his shoulder.

"What?" Lily asked, disbelieving. "What happened? You said, 'I'm Head Boy,' and Sirius's response was, 'I bet you my soul you're lying'?"

James nodded. "Yep."

"We need new friends," Lily concluded, moving to sit across from Christine at the Gryffindor table.

"Yep," James agreed, surprising Lily by sitting beside her. She looked at him for a moment as he settled.

"Don't you normally sit down there?" Lily asked, pointing to the end of the table where his friends usually conspired.

"I thought I'd try something new," James said, picking up his fork and absentmindedly twirling it between his fingers. "Does it bother you?"

"No. Will this be a daily thing, this new seating chart?"

"Depends how this test run goes," James said, tapping the fork against the table.

"Won't your friends miss you?" Lily asked, motioning to Peter and Sirius who had come into the Hall and arrived at their usual seats only to spot James down by Lily. They gestured back and forth between the seats.

"They'll sit over here," James said, watching his two friends begin a game of rock-paper-scissors. "I'm like Moses. Where I go, they follow."

Lily laughed, turned to him, and said, "I can't believe you just made that comparison." He shrugged and then pointed to Sirius and Peter who were now walking over.

"You hate that I'm always right, don't you?" 

"It is a little irritating," Lily joked, watching Sirius slide into the seat beside Christine. Peter sat beside him.

"New seating arrangement?" Sirius asked James, who shrugged.

"He's just happy that he can now stalk Lily at close proximity," Peter said.

"Trust me, she wants to be stalked," Sirius teased.

"Hey, secret best friend forever? Shut it," Lily said.

"I'd be nicer to me if I were you, or didn't you notice that we're obviously still dating?" Sirius asked, pointing around the table at the various younger students glancing at them.

"People need to focus on their own lives," Lily said, just loud enough for the closest onlookers to hear. They mostly turned away.

"Hey Sirius, I heard Lily cheated you over the break with James," Remus said, sitting on the other side of James. It was true, they really did revolve around James, didn't they? Was that what Lily was like? Was that what she'd always been like? How annoying. What made people so devoted to James, anyway?

"That's why the people are talking?" Sirius asked, staring at Lily. "How could you? After I kept your Sputnik obsession a secret for so long?"

Lily decided against throwing her spoon at his head. "You didn't keep it a secret. You told Peter."

"Peter figured it out on his own, and that's no reason to break Sirius's heart," James said, shaking his head at her. "I didn't know you were so cruel."

"It was _you_ I supposedly cheated with," Lily pointed out as Sirius unwrapped a Chocolate Frog and ripped a leg off to chew. "Doesn't that make you a backstabbing prat since Sirius is your best friend?"

"It would," James allowed, grabbing the rest of Sirius's Chocolate Frog out of his hand and shoving it in his mouth, "except that you and I are cuter than a pair of baby cheetahs, so people ignore my backstabbing ways."

"But Sirius and she were cute together too," Peter said, looking sympathetically at Sirius as if to comfort him. But Sirius was too busy opening another sweet to pay attention.

"Sirius and Lily didn't date," Christine told them all. Everyone looked at her.

"We know," Remus said, sounding a bit confused by her almost-hostile tone. "We were only joking."

"But they didn't date," Christine replied. She was resting her arms on the table and when the food showed up, they'd be on her plate.

"He was lying, Christine," Lily said, knowing that Christine did not appreciate joking, but that she understood lying rather well. But when she really looked at Christine in the light of the Hall, she realized how tired she looked.

"I know, but he shouldn't lie about that," Christine said. The first years marched in right then and the Sorting soon began. Lily tuned it out. James and Sirius began talking to Remus and Peter in quieter tones, allowing Lily to lean across the table and whisper back and forth with Christine.

"You all right, Christine?" Lily asked, leaning on her elbows.

Christine looked at the table. "I'm fine."

"You sure?" There was a pause.

"I miss Matt," Christine said half bitterly and half sadly as she picked at the wooden table with her nails.

Aw. "When was the last time you saw him?"

"Tuesday," muttered Christine.

"That was yesterday," Lily remarked.

"I know! I don't know why I miss him this much," Christine said, frustrated and tapping her hand on the table.

"Is he going to work at the Eeylops stores?" Lily put her hand on Christine's so that she would stop her erratic movements.

"Yes," Christine said, looking sullenly at the new students standing nervously in front of the Sorting Hat. "Eeylop left him the stores so Matt's going to manage them."

"Isn't there an Eeylop's store in Hogsmeade?" Lily asked. Christine nodded. "So he'll be able to visit."

Christine's face sort of fell. "Only twice a month."

"That's more than never," Lily said, trying to sound positive.

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," Christine said.

"All right," Lily said.

"Before we begin the feast, I have a few announcements," Dumbledore said, standing. Lily suddenly realized that this would be her last Welcoming Feast. It was vaguely disconcerting to this how many "lasts" there would be this year. As she considered what she was going to do after school, she only barely heard the Headmaster's speech, paying acute attention just at the end.

"And finally I would like to introduce our new Head Boy and Girl," Dumbledore said, gesturing toward the Gryffindor table, "Miss Lily Evans and Mr. James Potter."

There was a collective gasp followed by a loud roar of approval from the assembly. James jumped up and waved to the assembly, but when he noticed Lily hesitate before standing, he grabbed her hand and forced her up as well. The clapping grew louder.

"Is there a reason you pulled me out of my seat?" Lily asked, waving at the crowd before James and she sat back down.

"Because you were sitting," James said as if it were obvious, “and if I’m forced to deal with all this Head Boy business, you better believe I’m making you suffer with me.”

Lily smiled.

"I can't believe you're Head Girl," Christine said.

Lily admitted, "Neither can I.”

Lily looked around the Great Hall, looked at Sirius Black laughing and pointing with a forkful of pumpkin pie at Remus Lupin who sat shaking his head at Sirius. She saw Peter Pettigrew clutching his stomach laughing and James smiling beside him, mirth in his eyes as he made an extravagant gesture between Remus and himself. They were talking about a giant squid.

Lily saw Severus Snape glaring at James with hatred in his eyes, isolated at the Slytherin table. She saw Gertrude Wrightman holding court in the middle of the Slytherin table. And at the Gryffindor table, Christine O'Connell sat across from Lily pushing her food around her plate, missing Matt McGrath. Samantha Caldwell was talking to Tracy McGrath over a plate of meat, and Will McGrath and Chad Caldwell were whispering to one another at the end of the table, looking suspiciously like the second-year versions of James and Sirius.

Only too soon, Dumbledore stood and dismissed the assembly, saying, "Now with our full stomachs and dazed minds, I would ask the prefects and Head students to escort the students back to their dormitories."

"Follow me, children!" James said, rubbing his hands together. The people around him laughed. "We'll take them through secret passages and the dungeons and then--"

"Actually, the Head Students normally stay in the Great Hall until the final students have filtered out and then they bring up the end of the group," Remus informed him. James looked horrified.

"That is not what I signed up for," James muttered, standing with his friends.

"On a positive note, I'll be with you the whole time," Lily said, standing too.

"And what a positive note that is," Sirius said, smiling at her.

"I'd say it's one of the most positive positive notes I've ever heard," Peter agreed.

"So positive it might be negative," James said. Everyone paused a moment as they took that in and then looked at James. “An absolute negative that’s really a positive according to Arithmatic theory--"

"Maybe you should stop talking," Lily said.

"Bossy, isn't she?" Remus asked. Sam smiled, walking up with Tracy to stand beside Christine. The three girls and three blokes who weren't Head Boy or Girl began walking away, loudly discussing Lily and James.

"They think they're terribly funny," Lily noted.

"It's sad that they're so delusional," James said, wrapping his arm around her waist. They stood there, side by side, watching the various groups of students head toward the doors. There was a sort of order to the mess: prefects went first, raising a hand to get the attention of the first years, then came the older years who knew they ought to go to bed early the first night, and the middle students wandered aimlessly to prove they didn't need to follow a prefect to know the way back; the second years in particular trying to prove how well they knew the castle. It was normally those second years that ran into problems as they had no way of knowing the password.

"Well, this is rather boring, isn’t it?" Lily said, watching the students bottleneck at four different doors, the tables now nearly clear.

"If it’s a preview of the year, we’ll need to bring fireworks to the meetings."

"The meetings would be awful even if you brought in a flock of pixies," Lily said, placing a hand over his and proud of herself for still making coherent sentences and not just trying to kiss James.

"I hear making food castles is mildly entertaining."

"So Remus ratted me out, did he?" Lily asked, wishing he would kiss her as he had on the train.

"Yes, I hear your quite the disturber of the peace," James said, turning her so that she was facing him. His arms remained around her, fingers gently touching her lower back.

"I’m not all that bad," Lily said, stepping closer to him and slowly kissing first his right cheek and then his left. "Especially now that I run the meetings."

"Right." James leaned in so closely that they were sharing the same air. The Great Hall was empty.

"As always," Lily said, trying to keep her voice from shaking with excitement as he lightly brushed his lips against hers before leaning in to finally capture her mouth. She stood there, deliriously happy, holding him.

"Mr. Potter, Miss Evans!"

James and Lily jumped apart at the sound of Professor McGonagall's voice. They spun around and found her standing in the doorway with two small students.

"Yes?" Lily asked, heart beating quickly as she tried to hide her smile at the look of complete indignation on the Gryffindor Head of House's face.

"Professor McGonagall! How was your holiday?" James asked, smiling. Now Lily smiled too.

"These first years were separated from their fellow students," McGonagall said, her voice sounding a little strange, almost like she thought something was funny. But that couldn't be right. McGonagall didn't think anything was funny.

"Of course, Professor," James said, taking Lily's hand and pulling her toward the little students.

"Hello, first years," Lily greeted, giving them a genial wave. "What houses are you in?"

"Ravenclaw," said the girl on the left.

"Slytherin," the second girl answered.

"Nice," Lily said.

"I trust you to lead them to their houses and then return immediately to your own," McGonagall said. Her tone was still strange.

"Of course, Professor," James said, winking at the first years and telling them in a mock-whisper, "I'm her favorite student, no matter what she says."

"Mr. Potter, I don't have favorites," McGonagall said.

"See? She hides it really well," James said. The first years smiled. Lily did too, thinking of Sirius and how he was her 'secret best friend forever.'

"We'll take them to their houses," Lily told McGonagall as James asked the students their names. McGonagall swept away then, leaving James and Lily with two first years in the Great Hall.

"Lily, I'd like you to meet Susan and Tiffany," James said, pointing to the girls. Lily smiled at them.

"I'm Lily Evans," she said.

"I thought we could drop off Susan then Tiffany," James said as the group headed out of the Great Hall. "That would take us to Ravenclaw then Slytherin."

Lily smirked. They'd have the most alone time that way. "That'll work."

"All right, girls, we're taking a secret passage that'll speed us up a bit," James announced, sliding a wall aside and showing them a staircase. The girls looked at each other uncertainly before following Lily up the stairs. To put them at ease, Lily talked to them about dinner, the train ride, and how they knew each other.

“We went to primary school together,” Susan said as they reached the statue that marked the entrance to the Ravenclaw dorms.

“A non-magical one?” Lily asked. They nodded.

“I didn’t know about magic until I read my letter,” Susan admitted, looking nervous.

“Neither did I,” Lily replied, grinning.

"Hey Lily," James said, nodding his head toward the common room. "You want to open this and find a Ravenclaw to lead Susan around as we head to Slytherin by the Potions stairs?"

"Sure. I’ll see you in a bit," Lily said. She rather enjoyed popping into other common rooms. Being Head Girl had its perks.

"Can you show me around?" Susan asked Lily after James and Tiffany had left.

"I'm sorry. I don't know the Ravenclaw commons very well," Lily said, placing a hand on the girl's back and leading her to the statue. "But it's not a problem. I know a lot of their prefects and they're all very nice."

"All right," Susan said, though her tone did not suggest that everything was all right. In fact, her tone sounded like she thought the world was ending.

"It'll be fine," Lily said, telling her the password and having the statue move aside for them. Quite a few people noticed the entry of the Head Girl (who was, after all, a member of a different house) and a first year.

"Kevin?" Lily asked, spotting Kevin Creggie sitting in front of their fireplace playing chess. She introduced Susan to him, explaining what had happened, and he couldn’t have been sorrier.

“That was really stupid of the fifth years,” he said.

Susan shrugged. “It was all right.”

He looked at Lily. “Thanks for bringing her up.”

“Not a problem. It’s my job.” Lily looked at the first year. "I'll see you tomorrow, Susan."

"Good night, Lily," Susan said, looking around the room with awe.

"I'll see you in Arithmancy," Kevin said with a wave. Lily turned to leave, but just as she reached the exit, a voice stopped her.

"Lily!" exclaimed a young, male voice. Lily smiled, recognizing Will McGrath as he raced up to her, smiling his large, exuberant smile, closely followed by Chad Caldwell.

"Hello, Will, Chad," Lily greeted them. "How were your holidays?

"Great!" they said together.

"Christine came over a lot," Will said. "She's dating Matt!"

"I knew that, actually," Lily said, smiling at his excitement. He obviously liked Christine and liked knowing about his brother's girlfriend.

"Really?" Will asked, awed. Then his face melted into a little bit of an angry countenance. "Why didn't you ever visit?"

"I was a little busy," Lily only sort of lied. She didn't want to talk about feeling uncomfortable around Tracy. "My sister was married in August."

"What about June and July?" Will asked, unconvinced. Damn those Ravenclaws and their questions.

"Preparations and things," Lily said, "and I visited some of my family friends in Brussels."

"Why?" Will asked. Lily laughed.

"Because visiting family friends is fun," Chad answered, rolling his eyes. Will glared at his best friend.

"Who was that first year you brought in?" Will asked, turning and pointing to where Susan and Kevin were talking to Annabeth, the fifth year prefect.

Lily smiled. "Why? Don't you still think girls are gross?"

"They're not all gross," Will said. Lily smiled.

"Oh good," Lily said. "Her name's Susan."

"All right," Will said, obviously mentally jotting down this information.

"I'm sorry, but I really have to go," Lily said. "It was nice seeing you both."

Lily gave them both quick hugs and left a moment later, Will calling after her about F.A.D. notes. She smiled as the statue moved into place behind her and jogged a little to catch up with James and Tiffany before they reached the common room. Luckily for her, that wasn't difficult: James and Tiffany were stopped on the main floor, talking with Gertrude Wrightman.

"Gertrude!" Lily said, smiling as she slowed to a walk. Gertrude nodded at Lily. "What are you doing?"

"I realized that the fifth year prefects lost a first year and I came to find her," Gertrude said. Lily cringed for those fifth year prefects. Gertrude was no doubt going to assign them some serious detentions. She was unforgiving of Slytherins who made their house look bad.

"It happened to a Ravenclaw, too. Don't be too harsh on the prefects. It was utter confusion in the Great Hall," Lily noted.

"That's no excuse for not doing their one job correctly. I've already apologized to Tiffany."

"Oh good," Lily joked, "because I'm sure she was going to put in a house-transfer application because she had to be walked individually to her dorm the first day."

Gertrude looked at Lily reprovingly. Lily winked at her.

"Come on, you thought it was funny," James said to Gertrude, smiling. 

"Tiffany was fine. I promise," Lily said.

"Well, except for those few minutes when we were dangling her off the Astronomy tower," James said, placing a conspiratorial arm around Tiffany's little shoulders. "But you didn't mind, did you, Tiff?"

She shook her head, grinning, almost laughing.

"Though she may have minded when you nearly hit her with that Unforgivable," Lily quipped.

"Yes, that was a bit much. Sorry about that," James said to Tiffany. Now the eleven year old really did laugh, though Lily was sure she hadn't understood the reference to the Unforgivables.

"Are you quite finished?" Gertrude asked, hands clasped in front of her.

"We're only trying to make you understand that you had nothing to worry about," Lily said. "James and I took three first years back to their dorms, and they all still have every last finger and toe they had when we began."

"Congratulations," Gertrude said dryly, but Lily could see that her friend's mouth was quirking at the ends.

"You know," James said, "we are the Head students, which means we're incredibly responsible and wise."

"I've heard as much," Gertrude said, "what with being on the train and all."

"Gertrude Wrightman, you better watch out," Lily said. "That was almost a joke."

"Thank you for the insight."

"I'm always there for you," Lily replied, smiling. "And lost Tiffany." 

"It was thoughtful of you to be concerned," Gertrude said, "especially for a Slytherin."

Lily smiled cheekily. "Why? Because you’re all a bunch of cagey, evil bastards? Being Head Girl means I’m supposed to ignore little things like that.”

"It's good to see you, Lily." She turned. "If you're ready to go, Tiffany, I'll show you back to the Slytherin dorms."

"Bye!"

"You were wrong, you know, Lily," Gertrude said, pausing before they'd gotten too far and turning to look at Lily.

"Wrong? Me? Never," Lily said. Then she tilted her head and asked, "Wrong about what?"

"I never doubted that Tiffany was in good hands," Gertrude said. Then she nodded at both Lily and James, turned, placed a hand on Tiffany's shoulder and walked down the corridor. Lily stared after her for a moment, realizing that Gertrude was probably her best friend.

"You know," James said, "Gertrude Wrightman may be the only person in the world who thinks we both ought to be the Head Boy and Girl."

Lily laughed, turned, and began to walk back to Gryffindor.

"Hey, Dumbledore has faith," Lily said, nudging James lightly with her shoulder, "and I believe in you as Head Boy."

"That’s because I promised to blow something up, isn’t it?”

“And because you’re wildly attractive.”

James stepped in front of her, cutting off further walking, a goofily large grin on his face. And then he kissed her, hands on her hips. It might have been seconds or minutes or hours, but all Lily knew was that when she pulled away from him -- kissing him once and then twice briefly at the end -- she was happy.

Lily grinned and prepared to walk on, holding James’s hand all the while.

"We’re going to be such a good pair of Heads," Lily said laughingly.

"We’ll be legendary. People'll remember our names forever. We'll be in history books. Binns will lecture about us."

"You never aim for the little things, do you?" 

"Why have small dreams?" he asked, sounded genuinely confused. "There's nothing challenging about just wanting to do well as opposed to wanting to be the very best."

"We're very different people, aren't we?"

"Yes," James said. "But you obviously like me anyway, so what's it matter?" James had that damnable twinkle in his eye and Lily laughed aloud, stepping away from him and walking backwards down the corridor so that she was still facing him.

"You're going to be doing that a lot, aren't you?" Lily asked, turning to walk forward. James jogged up to pace with her.

"Doing what?" he asked as he fell into step beside her.

"Being smug about how much I like you," Lily said, turning her head to look at him.

"Yep," James said, shrugging. The stain glass window cast a multicolored shadow on the floor in front of them.

"Well," Lily said, turning to face him and walk sideways for a moment before walking forward again, "as long as we’re done insufferable couple things like holding hands and professing feelings, I feel like you ought to follow me around all the time with kind words. Some suggestions are: Wow, Lily, you look phenomenal today; Lily, you're brilliant; Lily, I think you're better than anything in the whole world. You know, things like that."

A portrait of a pair of dancing bears stopped their waltz in order to watch Lily and James walk past, before falling to all fours and charging out of their frame.

"Think a lot of yourself, don't you?" James asked, grinning. Lily laughed and kept walking, breaking eye contact as she chose to watch the other portraits stare at her and James.

"I did bring back the lost art of meandering," Lily allowed.

"Well, that and you _are_ Head Girl,” he said, squeezing her hand.

"James, the only reason I have this position is because Dumbledore probably felt badly about the whole Ball thing," Lily said. James laughed loudly and Lily looked up at him questioningly, but if she'd expected him to tell her anything, she was mistaken. Instead, he leaned down, pulled her as close as he could be and kissed her.

And it felt amazing.

Standing there in that darkened hall, his lips so wonderfully moving on hers, Lily forgot everything she had been thinking about, every awkward moment that had lead up to that perfect moment, every feeling of malcontent with her sweaty, gross state. She was happy, comfortable, safe, and just where she belonged.

When James pulled back and Lily's eye opened to see him breathing deeply, so close to her. She smiled up at him.

"That was fun," Lily said. "Any particular reason for it?"

"I like you," James said shortly, pecking her on the cheek and walking toward Gryffindor commons again.

"Oh good," Lily said, smiling despite her best efforts at sounding sarcastic.

"Yep," James said, nodding at her. Lily shrugged.

"As a side note, I'm really against public displays of affection," Lily commented casually.

"As a side note, you've been Head Girl for seven years; the badge this year is just a formality."

"Right," Lily scoffed, she ran the back of her fingernails up and down the wall.

"I am right," James said, smiling a confident smile, "but you don't believe me and you won't."

"No, I won't." Lily dropped her hand back down to her side.

"That's all right," James said. "Not a problem. I didn't expect you to believe me, Miss Thinks-She's-Stupid."

"That's the codename I wanted! How did you know?" Lily asked, mock-excited.

He shrugged. "I'm a genius."

"You're delusional," she replied, smirking.

They had reached the Fat Lady and outside it, sitting and laughing as they leaned against the wall, were Remus, Sirius, and Peter with a large champagne bottle and five champagne flutes.

"Hey there, Sirius," Lily said, letting go of James's hand and crouching in front of her handsome friend. Sirius smiled at her and raised his glass in salutations.

"Hey there, Lily," he said, winking. "Have fun with Sputnik?"

"I did, actually," Lily said, sitting down in front of him as she looked up happily at James, who also sat. "Quite surprising, isn't it?"

"I thought he was a snivelling toerag," Sirius said, looking questioningly at Lily as he grinned. Lily flicked him.

"Thanks for that reminder, Sirius," James said, stretching his arms out behind him to relax back on them. Lily thought he looked phenomenal. She purposefully looked back at Sirius to keep from staring, but Sirius had obviously seen her expression because his smile turned teasing as he opened his mouth. Lily flicked him preemptively.

"Cheers for James!" Peter exclaimed, lifting his flute and clinking it with Sirius's and Remus's flutes.

"Why are you in the corridor drinking?" Lily asked.

"To celebrate Lily and James, the two-year disaster that is finally done," Peter proclaimed. Lily laughed.

"And thank you for that, Peter," James said, but he was smiling at Peter as he looked around. "Where are our flutes, then?"

"Right here," Remus said, lifting two champagne flutes from beside him and handing one to each putting them on the ground and filling them with champagne.

"You know, I could take this all as a very creepy thing," Lily said, relaxing back onto her left hand.

"No, you couldn't," Sirius said. "I'm here. I'm never creepy."

Lily looked at James, who shrugged and lifted his glass in salute. She shrugged too, clinked glasses with them all and held it without taking a sip. She hated champagne.

"Did we interrupt anything?" Sirius asked, looking suggestively at Lily, who smirked. James, ever-smooth bloke that he was, snorted into his glass. "Your goodnight kiss, perhaps?"

"Don't worry about it, Sirius," Lily said, looking at her watch and then up to meet Sirius' dancing grey eyes and realizing for what might have been the thousandth time how truly wonderful her friend was. "We've still got time."

“We could leave. Plug our ears. Gouge out our own eyes,” Sirius suggested.

“You’re the best mate ever,” James said, grinning. Lily laughed. She knew she had to get to bed soon. Tomorrow there would be classes, Head duties, prefects to monitor, and letters to write to her family. But sitting there laughing with her secret best friend forever on her right and Sputnik on her left, Lily could not help but think that she did not want that moment to end.


	26. Epilogue: The Way They Came To Be

 

_There is an antiquity to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It is a place where students play the two thousand year old sport of Quidditch, enjoy games of chess, wear traditional black robes with pointed hats, study Potions in a dungeon and Divination in a tower. There are secret passages and merpeople and house-elves; It was every child's magical dream._

_But Hogwarts never claimed to offer perfection. The school only ever offered one thing, a piece of advice that was simultaneously a warning and a threat:_ Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus _\-- never tickle the sleeping dragon._

_With eyes as green as scales and hair as red as fire, everyone should have known to leave Lily Evans alone. She was not someone to trifle with, not someone to threaten, never someone to underestimate._

~*~*~

A thousand thoughts raced across Lily's mind as the Killing Curse came for her that Halloween night. She knew it was the end and she her heart raced -- desperate to save her son, terrified of leaving him, furious she would become yet another nameless, faceless dead Mudblood. 

In that half a moment of time, as the curse flew toward her, she loved James and Harry more than she feared her death. If she could have, she would have kissed James and told him eight years of loving him had felt like getting to live a thousand happy endings. She would have thrown her arms around Sirius and told him not to blame himself. She would have held Harry in her arms and smelled his perfect baby smell and imagined the beautiful, happy life he would live. She would have told Petunia she understood the reason why she had not been willing to be their Secret Keeper. She would have done a hundred thousand things in that moment, if she'd had the choice.

But she had no choice. So in that moment she did the only thing Voldemort would let her do: she died for her family.

Voldemort stepped over Lily Potter's body and focused on the oddly silent baby on the other side of the room. The Dark Lord did not understand why the Mudblood had died instead of simply letting him have her son. All of his reports claimed that she was stronger and smarter than that. But it was no matter. She was dead. He raised his wand at the green-eyed baby who was struggling to stand and toddle over to his mother.

"Mama?" the baby said as he grabbed a piece of his mother's hair.

" _Avada Kedavra._ "

As soon as the green light left his wand, Voldemort knew that something had gone wrong. The light was growing. Growing and coming closer.

In that last moment, if he'd had a choice, Voldemort would have picked up that child and thrown him into a wall. He would have beaten the woman's body beyond recognition. He would have slit Pettigrew's throat and tortured his loyal Death Eaters for failing to kill these Potters and forcing him to do the job himself.

But he had no choice.

And so, in that moment, Voldemort did the only thing Lily Potter would let him do: he vanished.

As the house shook in the aftermath of the spell, Harry Potter sat playing with his mother's hair until the first wall crumbled. The loud noise scared him and he cried. But his mother did not pick him up. His father did not come to him with a bottle and a story about his friends to soothe him.

Would Lily Potter have been proud of the sacrifice she made? It's impossible to tell, but the most probable answer would be no. She would be grateful beyond measure that Harry survived, but she would have been angry that Voldemort had only vanished. She would have been angry that her son still had to grow up and face an enemy from whom she felt she should have protected him.

And she would have been supremely agitated to see his cries go uncomforted for thirteen years, until he found Sirius Black as she too had found him: by sheer dumb luck. She would have been grateful to see Mrs. Weasley take her son in and care for him and hug him at last as a mother should. But she should have been there. And of Petunia? Lily would have wept bitter tears for the relationship she should have salvaged.

She wouldn't have called her death heroic; she probably would have scoffed at that term, actually. Instead, she would have said that any other mother in her position would have done the same. Like her son, Lily would not have seen the thirteen years of peace that came from her death. She would have only seen the suffering it caused, suffering she would have imagined she could have stopped.

But this is neither here nor there, for Lily Potter died the night of 31 October 1981. She died too young, too beautiful, too promising, too loving, and too everything she never thought she was. 

**~*~*~**

_You knew the moment this story began how it was destined to end, how every story from this era ended: with a bite from a werewolf; a fall behind a veil; betrayal of a brother; a heroic last stand to buy a loved one time to escape; an Unforgivable attack when they thought they were safe; a room in St. Mungo's with too many gum wrappers; or death, accepted, to save a son. Yet you crossed time, walked through a concrete post, onto a legendary train, and waited out the ride in a small, old-fashioned compartment. You rode a horseless carriage up to a castle that appeared to most to be nothing more than rubble. And you found Hogwarts._

_Not the Hogwarts of Harry Potter, which seems suspiciously lacking in laughter, but rather you found the Hogwarts of Lily Evans. No, it was never the Hogwarts of James Potter. Not even the Hogwarts of the Marauders. It was hers, and she ruled the hearts of students and staff with an easy, self-deprecating smile and an honest aversion to compliments. She laughed when jokes were funny; thought every mistake was recognizable, forgivable, and forgettable; started a Friendship Appreciation Day in her sixth year; and when she was fifteen she fell in love with a bloke that earned her love at seventeen._

_You came not to watch the ending you knew, but to see the beginning unfold._  

**~*~*~**

"You need to move," Lily said as she pushed past Petunia's barely open front door. 

"You're not welcome," Petunia said, scornfully noting the mud her sister dragged all over her clean carpet as she walked back into Petunia's life and her home. She had thought her peculiar sister was gone for good.

"I need you to move," Lily repeated, glancing around her sister's home as if a rat might scuttle across the floor at any moment. Petunia glared. "You need to run away and never mention my name again. Tell Vernon anything you want. Just don't let anyone know that you're related to a witch."

Petunia narrowed her eyes even further. "You sound insane."

"Don't let your neighbors even suspect. Don't mention the name Potter. Or magic. Don't mention magic ever." Lily was too immersed in her rant to even hear her sister's response.

"I don't talk about your abnormality," Petunia said, offended by the thought that she would.

"I talked to a powerful wizard," Lily continued, not truly explaining. "He'll contact you, give you information. He'll probably even set up a home and a job for Vernon."

"Vernon already has a job and certainly wouldn't appreciate a freak finding him a new one."

"This isn't a choice."

Petunia, noticing that her sister was being self-centered as usual, snapped. "Moving is out of the question."

"I know you, Petunia," Lily said, taking her sister's hands in hers. "You've read the _Prophet_. You know what's happening in my world."

"So it's 'your world' now," Petunia said, not daring to admit that she read that abominable paper. "So what's all of this? The trash you left behind."

"I didn't want to lose the Muggle part of me. I thought I could be in both worlds, but I can't. Not any more. I have to choose. And I have to keep you safe."

"I am safe in my own home," Petunia said, her hand laying over her pregnant stomach.

"You need to move as far away from magic as possible."

"Why?" Petunia asked, not bothering to mention that she had already taken down her freakish sister's pictures. "What's happened?"

What hadn't happened? Tracy left the country to avoid the war. Sam married a Death Eater and so Christine quit speaking to her. Christine and Matt married and she was pregnant now too, but they were in hiding after the attack on the McGrath home a few blocks from where Lily's parents used to live. Sirius was in the hospital in danger of losing his arm after that strike three nights before. Remus had been captured and found the day after the Full Moon beside his dead friend with no memory of what happened. Peter look any stranger in the eye after his flat was burned to the ground. And James and she were told there was a betrayer among their friends. A Judas. And they had no way of knowing who it could be.

"He's begun killing families," Lily said, deciding to be short.

"Families?" Petunia repeated, taking a step back as fear and anger washed over her.

"Muggle relations of wizards and witches."

"Me?"

"And Vernon." It was hard to admit how much danger her sister was in because of her. "He would torture you for your connection to me."

"Then why do you have to be a witch?" spat Petunia, anger making her say the things she never wished to say, making her push away a world she did not understand, although it was her sole connection to her sister.

"I can't help it."

"You can. If I should run, then you should too. Come back to the normal world."

"I can't," Lily said, not even bothering to tell her sister how irritated she was by the use of the word 'normal.'

"Why not?"

But Lily could not answer that question with words. She remembered the countless dead and tortured, the fear that ate away at her every day and led her to her sister's house in order to protect Petunia. And yes, it would seem easy to run and pretend that this war never happened, live with her sister in a quaint part of a town that knew nothing of true evil, hurt, or pain. It would be easy to run from the Unforgivables and find herself raising a child with James and without danger. Or, at least, it would have been easy for anyone else. But for Lily, it would never be possible.

"They need me," Lily said.

"They don't. Do you think that you're going to destroy all of those-- those Death Eaters? You can't. You're just one woman. One mediocre woman. Let those people handle their own problems."

"I am one of 'those people.'"

"Don't be," Petunia said, beginning to cry. Why wasn't Lily reasonable? Just this once, why couldn't she be reasonable?

"I already am. I may not be important, but I am one more brick in a wall holding back destruction," Lily said, tears in her own eyes, "and they need every brick they can get."

"If you die, I will not mourn you," Petunia spat. "I won't care. I promise. You have a choice and you're choosing death."

"Maybe," Lily admitted, hurt and angry and feeling empty, "but for you, I would choose life."

"And how am I supposed to survive if you can't?" Fear etched itself in Petunia's words. "I'm normal."

"Run," Lily repeated, her own tears nipping at the side of her eyes as a dull, throbbing pain began in her left temple.

"If I did," Petunia said in a hard, steel voice, "I would do it completely. I'd never forgive you."

Lily nodded, hating herself and Voldemort and this entire situation. Hating that she didn't know her sister well enough to know if Petunia would keep this promise. Hating that the last letter she'd written her sister had been months ago. Hating that Petunia and her family were in danger.

"I'm sorry," Lily said.

Petunia shook her head. "Leave."

This wasn't real. This was some sort of evil prank and she would never forgive Lily for not ending the joke. What had her sister gotten into? Why did she have to be a freak and make that evil world intrude upon her house? Why did she have to be selfish and keep her magic and why was everything falling apart? Petunia liked order, liked cleanliness, liked stability. Her sister, however, was full of disorder, messiness, and chaos. How dare she drag Petunia into a war that had nothing to do with her? How dare she make Voldemort her problem?

"I'll bring no pictures of you. I'll not mention my maiden name or the name of your husband. As far as I'm concerned, when you leave this place, you'll be dead already." The words hurt them both. They were an admission of the end: the end of the magical world in Petunia's life, the end of Petunia in Lily's life. The end.

And Lily heard what her sister refused to say: Petunia cared about Lily. She cared enough to move, to lie, to hide, and to pretend. She cared enough to want to save Lily's son.

What Lily did not know was that after Albus Dumbledore moved the Dursleys to a safe, warded neighborhood and Vernon (unbeknownst to him) into a secure, steady job, Petunia wrote a scornful letter, asking for information about her sister, and Dumbledore responded with weekly updates. He told her they were going into hiding, told her that they wanted her to be their Secret Keeper, told her they understood why she said no. He told her that they were targeted and asked that she stop writing. And she agreed.

And so, when Petunia opened her door on the first of November 1981 and found little Harry Potter clutching a letter in Dumbledore's writing, she knew what it meant, and she screamed in horror. The nightmare was real. There was no more denying it. But when she read the letter, knowing that her house would keep this child alive, she scornfully agreed to protect him the way her sister refused to.

The boy was famous in his world, so Petunia made quite sure no pictures of him were ever published in the local newspaper, never mounted on her wall. She entered him in no contests and refused to let the schools give him awards. She kept the boy in a cupboard under the stairs and did not mention his name to anyone, lest they recognize it and try to bring him back into that death-filled world and put her own family in danger again. She called him boy at all times, in the house and out, to ensure that none of those freaks might overhear his name and recognize him.

If a wizard happened into her house, he would never know that another boy even lived there, let alone suspect that Petunia was related to the famous Lily Potter, who was as unDursleyish as it was possible to be. She tried to beat, yell, and terrorize the boy's dangerous freakishness out of him.

But in the end, the boy was just as stupid and stubborn as her sister. He refused her help, even tried to run away right after his godfather escaped that prison. She knew the moment she saw the news who he was, that Sirius Black. She remembered him from her wedding and from Dumbledore's letter. She knew he would come for the boy.

When they moved to Privet Drive, Dumbledore assured her that no one of ill intent could come near her home. He said no one even knew where she lived, but Petunia knew her foolish brother-in-law would have told his best friend. And she peered out her window almost constantly that summer, fear giving her worry lines. She feared for her life, for Dudley's, for Vernon's.

Petunia had told her sister that she would cut all ties to her if it meant saving Dudley, but the boy remained.

It is a funny thing, a sister's love. It is a given -- though sometimes unwillingly -- and a burden. It protects nephews and endangers sons. It tore at Petunia's heart for a decade before the boy left, and then it was the reason she asked him into her home over the summer holidays. But it ensured no love for the boy, the boy for whom she bought no gifts and made sure not to encourage, for fear of supporting his freakish ways, the boy who was the reason for her sister's death and her family's danger. Still, the lingering memory of a promise to Lily kept him in her home as she fulfilled her promise to tell him what he needed to know by telling him nothing at all.

**~*~*~**

_You came to discover the answer to questions you could not voice: Who was Lily Evans? Why did she sacrifice herself? What made her different? What made her special? Who were the Marauders? What made their year so amazing? So different? So powerful?_

**~*~*~**

On April 1st, 1976 Lily Evans and James Potter both agreed that they had pulled a coup: they married without lighting anything on fire. Admittedly, Lily had chosen the date knowing that Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, and Remus Lupin were bound by an old Marauder's vow to never pull a prank of April Fool's Day. Sirius had been less than thrilled when he learned the date of the wedding, even going so far as to lie to Lily and say that that was the day of a Full Moon. She showed him a chart of the Moon cycles and he ran off to pester James .

But it was a strange wedding, nonetheless, filled with happy faces that never got the chance to see the bruises that Lily's dress hid-- bruises that a Death Eater had given her two weeks before as she and James had, through sheer, ridiculous luck, managed to escape an attack.

It was also an amazing wedding: old friends came with happy gifts; Mrs. Potter sat in the front row smiling happily; the entire wedding party managed to shove together for one of the best pictures Lily had ever been a part of; everyone went to the reception and drank too much; Sirius gave a speech crediting himself with forcing Lily and James together by rejecting both of their advances and directing them at one another instead; Lily had laughed as James threw his napkin at Sirius; and then they all ate cake. But mostly, it was amazing for Lily because she married James. Married him. Finally. Forever.

And so a very tired Lily danced with her husband on the wooden floor of their reception hall and tried to memorize the moment. It wasn't often a person was perfectly happy, after all.

"May I cut in?" Sirius asked, tapping James on the shoulder. James and Lily stopped dancing, but James didn't unwrap his arms from around her.

"I don't know about letting the two of you out of my sight," James said.  "I wouldn't want her to go back to her old boyfriend tonight of all nights."

"Sputnik's always been threatened by the depth of our connection," Sirius said to Lily, who twisted around in James' arms so that his head was above her right shoulder.

"He's obviously forgotten that I already danced with Matt McGrath, who is the _love of my life_ and the real threat," Lily said, shaking her head sadly as James dropped his arms from around her stomach and twisted to kiss her cheek.

"I still don't think that's funny," James said.

"And I doubt you ever will," Lily said, smiling and taking Sirius's hand.

"At least you're not choosing Sirius. I could never handle his gloating," James said.

"Sirius and me? That'll never happen," Lily scoffed motioning between Sirius and herself. She looked back at James. "After that one night in seventh year with the leather beds, I'm disturbed to be _this_ close to him."

"We agreed to never talk about that," Sirius deadpanned, looking sadly at Lily.

James shook his head. "You're both lucky that I'm not the suspicious type. And that I know when you're lying."

"And you're lucky I'm not the cheating type," Lily said, putting her left hand on Sirius's shoulder. "Have you seen how well Will McGrath grew up?"

"James, can I steal a dance?" Tracy asked, coming up from behind the group. James threw his arm around her shoulders.

"Look, someone likes me," James bragged. "My very own McGrath."

"Yes. Too bad she's not the woman you just married," Sirius said, placing a hand on Lily's back and leading her away from the center of the dance floor.

"I suppose I like him well enough," Lily told Sirius as he slowed the pace of their dance.

"Don't tell him that. It'll only inflate his ego."

"Well, he is the reason I have my cat."

"Then he's been good for something, isn't he?" The pair spun in circles and, despite anything he might say or do to pretend to the contrary, Sirius Black was an excellent dancer.

"That was a wonderful speech you gave," Lily said, noticing the way Sirius's grey eyes went out of focus for a bit and wanting him to talk to her.

"Are you being sarcastic or honest?" Sirius asked, suspicious.

Lily tilted her head and said, smiling, "Half and half."

"Perfect."

"Did you really think I was a whim?"

"Yes," Sirius said, nodding. His dark hair fell into his eyes  and he shook it away. "Only then he kept talking about you. Obsessing over you, really." Lily grinned. "So I decided to make him stop."

"Good job, there," Lily said, though the thought of that made her stomach ache. Sirius could have done it, could have convinced James to give up on Lily.

"Then, about a week after I'd decided to find a new girl for James, I went on a very informative walk to the Slytherin common room with this girl in my year and knew that I'd found the right one for him."

Lily smiled. "Oh? And who was this girl you'd picked to replace me?"

"Well, she was nothing like you. You, I knew, were a rule-abiding bookworm. She, on the other hand, cursed and knew how to avoid Filch. She reeked of rule breaking, and I later learned that she was actually quite smart, which was unfortunate, but her stubbornness did much to counter that. Plus, she tackled me to the ground." 

"Flinch wouldn't have believed it if I'd simply caught you."

"McGonagall would have."

"Have you danced with her yet?"

"Twice. Obviously. We're planning to elope."

Sirius twirled her out. She spun back into him and asked, "How's Adrianna doing?

"She's over with some of the other Muggles you invited," Sirius said. "You didn't have to set me up, you know. I could have found myself a date to your wedding."

"I know you could have found one," Lily said, "but you wouldn't have. You never do. You're always too busy."

"I have a lot of friends that want to spend a lot of time with me. Women don't understand that." Sirius smiled and looked self-congratulatory as he maneuvered them past two other dancing couples into the middle of the dance floor. Lily noticed Gertrude Wrightman sitting at one of the tables, drinking champagne.

"I didn't think Gertrude would come," Lily admitted. "It's pretty public."

"She works with you," Sirius said, a slight edge to his voice. "I would've been odd if she didn't accept. She's quite dedicated to her social obligations."

Lily could hear the bitterness and so she said nothing in response, but let him four step her across the floor. It reminded her of Petunia's wedding reception, which probably wasn't the best thing to think about right then since it had ended so poorly.

"I'm really happy for James," Sirius said suddenly.

"Not for me?" Lily asked, her smile still in place. It hadn't left her face all day, in fact. Apparently, weddings were similar to powerful Cheering Charms.

"For you too, but mostly for James," Sirius said "You're a bit on the scrawny side and you're definitely mouthy, but overall, you're pretty fun. I just feel sorry for you as you're stuck with that clod James."

Lily laughed.

"Thank you for everything. For this. For the hospital," Lily said. 

Sirius looked away. "You don't have to thank me for that."

"I know I don't. But still. I couldn't've made it through that night without you," Lily said, her stomach knotting with the memory of James and blood and those wizards saying only family could go in.

"You could've. You've always been the strong one."

"Incorrect. If anything had happened to him--"

"It didn't."

Lily nodded and looked out over the crowd of friends and family gathered around her. She mentally shook herself, but Sirius, noticing her inattention, tapped his hand against her back to get her focus. She flinched.

"If you could avoid poking those healer-proof bruises on my back, you'd probably help me stop thinking about it," Lily said, smiling up at him to show that she didn't care. He immediately moved his hand further up and to her side. Lily watched James dip Tracy and almost bang her head on the floor.

"Lily, I'd do anything for the two of you."

She nodded. "Me, too. For you, I mean. You know that, right?"

He dropped a kiss on her forehead, warmth and safe and fond. "I'm so glad you're the one my brother picked."

For a brief moment, words were stolen from her. 

"That's why we're secret best friends," Lily said.

"Forever."

"I hope you come over and visit us as much as you can," Lily said.

"You'll regret saying that within the month," Remus said, walking up to the pair of them even though they were in the middle of the dance floor.

"More like the week," Peter amended, standing beside him. They really did travel in a pack, didn't they?

"I'm sure you'll abuse the privilege, but it'd be nice to see you lot," Lily said, looking at the three of them and feeling like they were somehow broken without James there, their fourth. "I'm not saying I'll cook for you or anything, but you can stay until I kick you out."

"It's an invitation for all of us," Peter said, wiping a fake tear from his eye as he looked at Remus. "Isn't that adorable?"

"Are you harassing my wife. Wow. That's odd to say," James said, placing a hand on both Peter's and Remus's shoulder. The four of them fit together.

"Good odd or bad odd?" Sirius asked. Lily flicked him. Stupid question.

"I haven't decided yet," James said. Lily flicked him then, too. Stupid answer.

"Quite the charmer, isn't he?" Lily asked Remus and Peter, who both just grinned.

"I don't have to charm you any more," James replied, smirking as he reached out to grab her hand. "You already married me. It's all down hill from here."

"Yep," said Sirius, Peter, and Remus at the same time, nodding. Lily laughed and James told them to bugger off, and soon she was back where she belonged, where she had been since she was seventeen: with James Potter. 

 

**~*~*~**

_You wanted to learn more about the generation "before": before the war, before the breaking of brothers, before the Order, before the remarkable sacrifice. You could not believe that Lily and James were ever simply children, called to learn at Hogwarts by an owl-delivered letter at eleven like everyone else. You could not believe that they were actually quite normal: they were eleven and scared, twelve and growing, thirteen and nervous, fourteen and awkward, fifteen and cocky, sixteen and learning, seventeen and too old. Well, they were normal but for their exceptional ability to laugh until they hurt, and then laugh because they hurt._  

 

**~*~*~**

James's house never failed to overwhelm Lily. Ever since he had first brought her there the summer after they left school, she had always managed to find something more beautiful than before. She would walk through those grand doors and stare around and wonder how many of these priceless pieces of art James had managed to destroy as a child. But at the moment she wasn't looking at the frescos or vases. Instead, she was staring at a ball of fur circling her left ankle. When she asked what it was doing, James promptly replied that it was her cat.

"What do you mean 'my cat'?" Lily asked, watching it continue to circle.

"It's yours." James scooped it up off the floor, holding it up to his nose as it pawed at his face. "Or rather, she's yours."

"You bought me a cat?" Lily asked, looking shrewdly at the thing without reaching out to take it.

"No," James replied, stepping closer and placing the cat against her chest. "They just come."

"From nowhere?" Lily asked, instinctively raising her arms to prevent the cat from falling in case James was a prat and let go of it.

"From _somewhere_. I just don't know specifically." The cat was in her arms now, and despite herself Lily thought the little devil-thing was adorable. Damn. She was a dog person. Had been ever since her parents brought home Shooting Star.

"Will it go back there?" Lily wasn't supposed to think the cat was adorable.

"Just--"

"Lily has a cat?" Sirius interrupted, coming back from the kitchen with a roll and heading toward Lily to inspect the creature.

"No. Lily doesn't have a cat. The cat appeared out of nowhere," Lily protested, lifting the thing up to her eye-level and nearly shrieking when it began struggling to get closer.

"So you're engaged?" Sirius asked, shoving the rest of his roll into his mouth and plucking the cat out of Lily's grasp, holding it in the crook of his arm. It purred happily.

"No?" Lily said. The cat seemed to adore Sirius as he scratched behind its ears.

"You idiot," James muttered.

"Haven't you asked her yet?" Sirius kept petting the cat as he looked questioningly at his friend. Yet? No. Lily must have been hearing things.

"No, not yet," James replied. He seemed ready to curse Sirius. And there was that word 'yet' again.

"Wait. Yet? What do you mean yet? Were you--" Lily stopped trying to speak, took a deep breath, and stared at James as if willing him to laugh. They were young. Too young. even with the war. Weren't they? 

"Lily?" James asked, reaching out to grab her hand. "You okay?"

"I feel vaguely ill," she muttered, tightening her hold on his hand.

"Well, that's not exactly how I pictured this going."

"Pictured what going?" 

"This whole proposing thing," James said, pulling a jewelry box out of his pocket, and holding it in his hand.

"Are you proposing right now?"

"Not if the idea makes you feel vaguely ill."

"You're so fickle that a little nausea throws you off?" Lily thought he had more resolve than that, thought that he would try to convince her. Truth be told, now that he had rescinded his invitation, she felt agitated. 

"Nah. I'm going to ask anyway." He had a full-blown smile on his face now.

Lily huffed. "You're making this difficult on purpose."

"You think it was _easy_ for me to buy the damn ring?" James opened the box, and her breath hitched. It was a silver ring with a diamond in the center -- a large diamond -- surrounded by clusters of little diamonds on the band on either side. "I thought I'd be sick several times in the store and then there was the whole planning for the actual asking, and let me tell you that wasn't pleasant either."

"So you're saying asking me to marry you is a horrible experience?" 

"Well, yes, to be honest," James said, shutting the jewelry box. She looked back up at him. "If it hadn't been for Peter helping out, I'd have given up on the whole thing."

Lily nodded and meant to respond smartly, but instead she began to cry a little, despite her best efforts. "I'm glad you didn't give up."

James wrapped his arms around her and kissed the side of her head. "Of course I didn't."

Lily hugged him back, letting herself cry a bit more. "I've always wanted a cat."

James actually laughed then, and leaned back to kiss her quickly on the mouth. "I love you, you know."

"I love you, too," Lily said, wiping her eyes.

"Then will you marry me?" he asked, standing in front of her in a casual set of robes, hands in his pockets, glasses slightly askew.

"Are you sure?" Lily asked, opening her eyes and tying to blink back her tears. "There's a war that creeping up around us that we can't run away from. And our friends--"

"Lily--"

"It's real, and I don't want you doing this just because we're scared."

"You're being stupid."

"Just what I always imagined my future husband would say to me the day he proposed."

"So will you marry me?" James asked.

Lily smiled. "You're not worried at all."

James shook his head. "Course not. I'd want you as my wife in a decade of peace, too. A decade of anything. Fights and explosions and rainbows all."

"Oh," Lily said. "Well, okay."

"Okay, you'll marry me?" James asked. "Because I certainly didn't imagine 'okay' to be the response to this question."

Lily looked at James, the bloke she had loved since she was seventeen, the one who Polyjuiced himself to look like Remus just to be able to talk to her. She thought about the way he had bear-hugged her mother and shook her father's hand. The way he had glared at Petunia and said he couldn't be cordial to her after the way she had treated Lily. She thought about kissing him for the first time and second time and all of the crazy times. She thought about how he sat with her as she cried over the deaths of two of their classmates. She thought about fighting with him and making up, and how her mother had told her she was too young to fall in love. She thought about lying under the stars with him and finding Orion and how he was the thing she most missed when she went back to the Muggle world for vacation.

All this she thought in a moment and then she said, "I've wanted to marry you since I was fifteen years old."

James smiled and looked at her with such intensity that Lily blushed. "So that's a yes then?"

"Yes, you blockhead!" Sirius called from across the room where he was playing with Lily's cat.

"Really not the time, Sirius," James called back, eyes locked on Lily . Was this really happening?

"That's a yes, James," Lily said. And suddenly James's lips were on Lily's. She was laughing and crying and just generally looking like a fool, she was sure, but she didn't care. Not one bit. She was going to marry James.

"You just made the biggest mistake ever," James said, holding her very close. "Now you'll never be rid of me."

"Oh shoot, and there went my big plans." Lily kissed him as he wrapped his arm around her middle and lifted her off the ground. When he set her back down, she tried to catch her breath as she met his intense stare. "I'm going to marry you."

"Of course you are, you have a family cat," Sirius said, obviously deciding to rejoin the private conversation.

"Oh hush, I'm sure you have a cat," Lily said, no malice in her voice, with a smile so big her face almost hurt. She was marrying James! She leaned in to kiss James again, taking the front of his shirt in her hands and pulling him down.

"Nope," Sirius said loudly, breaking through the delirious haze of happiness that was working to consume Lily. "They're only for members of the family."

Lily pulled away from her kiss with James and looked at him, then Sirius, then the cat in his arms. "What do you mean they're only for family?"

"They're only for family," Sirius repeated.

"Thanks, Mr. Cryptic." She turned to James. "What does that mean?"

"That they're very, very smart cats." And his lips would not let her talk anymore.

**~*~*~**

_These people chose what was right, not what was easy: they stayed to fight instead of running; they broke away from family tradition; they, despite the deaths around them and the offers of asylum in Voldemort's forces, chose to oppose him, chose to marry, chose to have children, chose to live._  

 

**~*~*~**

Lily nervously knocked on the door to the Headmaster's office, holding the crumpled letter in her hand. McGonagall had given it to her with strict instructions to meet the Headmaster in his office after breakfast ended, before she even went to her first class.

"Come in, Miss Evans," said Professor Dumbledore. Lily pushed the door open and found not just Professor Dumbledore but also a man and a woman seated across from him. They all stood when she entered.

"I didn't mean to interrupt," Lily said, glancing at the guests.

"You are not interrupting, Miss Evans," the headmaster said, gesturing with his hand for Lily to come into the room and sit in a chair opposite his desk. She took a few more steps inside, but did not sit down. "These visitors are here to see you."

"Me?" Lily asked, looking first at Dumbledore and then the two people standing in front of her.

"Yes," said the man, stepping forward and offering his hand. "My name is Edmund Clark and this is Amelia Allen. You must be Lily Evans."

Lily shook their proffered hands. "Yes, I am. How do you do?"

"It's nice to meet you," Edmund Clark said, sitting in one of the three chairs across from Dumbledore's. "Let's sit.

And so they sat, Lily confused but relieved. She had imagined the reason for this visit to be anything from Dumbledore stripping her of her Head Girl badge to a notification of a death in the family. Two friendly people sitting in on her meeting seemed much less intimidating than either of those options.

"We're here to offer you a job," Edmund said.

Lily looked at him, shocked. She hadn't expected to hear back from any company before the end of April, at the earliest, and it was still March. "I only sent out my applications yesterday."

"No, Miss Evans," Edmund said, leaning forward. "You misunderstand. We're not offering you the sort of job people apply for. We're offering you a place as an Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries."

"Excuse me?" Lily asked, wanting to laugh. What a silly title for a ridiculous department.

"An Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry of Magic," Mr. Clark reiterated. _Oh, thanks for the clarification_ , Lily thought.

"What sort of work does the Department of Mysteries do?" Lily asked, deciding to take the initiative in the conversation.

"We can't tell you," Edmund replied. Ha! Okay. So that was the 'mystery' part. 

"What would I be doing?" Lily asked, smiling openly now at how silly this all sounded.

"We can't tell you," Edmund said, leaning back and putting his hands his armrests.

"Could I guess and you could tell me if I was right or not?" Lily joked.

"No."

"Okay," Lily said, realizing that he was neither joking about this nor did he have a sense of humor about it. "Is there anything you can tell me?" 

"Very little," Edmund admitted. Lily looked at Dumbledore to see if this was a prank and found him popping a piece of chocolate into his mouth. Good grief.

"If I took the job could I find out what I'd be doing?" Lily asked, letting a little sarcasm leak into her words. She realized that this was a potential job interview and these people deserved respect, but if they were going to avoid all of her questions and give her no further information, then she found it impossible to take this seriously.

"Yes," Edmund said. "Though, if you ever left the job your memory would be _Obliviated_."

"Of course," Lily said, barely keeping herself from leaving right then. These people were crazy: asking her to accept a job they could not describe for an amount of money they wouldn't disclose, one which would cost Lily her memory if she chose to leave it. Right. Sure. She would definitely consider that job.

"Perhaps, Edmund, you ought to explain how you came to offer Miss Evans this position," Professor Dumbledore suggested. Lily looked over at him to see him still fiddling around with his candy. Curious.

"We heard about your Seventh Year project. Your work with wands and dissecting the charms inlaid in them," Edmund said. "In particular, we were interested in your use of the Tempus Cinqueso Charm on late model wands to study the aging of wands and the relationship between the wand and wizard or witch."

This did interest Lily and she stared at him. "I only began working on that aspect of my project a month ago. I haven't even had time to talk with Professor Flitwick about that."

"Nor have you had time to discuss the spell you created last week to study the relationship between time and wands," Miss Allen said, speaking up for the first time. Old as she was, her voice was sharp and clear.

Okay, this was unsettling. "How do you know about that?"

"The Department of Catalogs, specifically the New Spells, Curses, Potions, and More division, automatically logs the use of a new spell and its function," Edmund said, taking charge again. He used terms as if he had worked at the Ministry for so long (and his department specifically) that he had forgotten that other people might not know what he was talking about.

"And what? That department sends a copy of the registry to the Department of Mysteries?" Lily asked. It sounded too elaborate.

"We can't discuss that," Edmund said. If this meeting hadn't taken place in Dumbledore's office, Lily might have suspected it to be one of Sirius's pranks. At least she was only missing one of her lessons for this ridiculous meeting.

"My spell interested you?" Lily asked, trying to sidestepped the annoying 'no talking' policy of theirs.

Edmund looked at her. "We can't--"

"Discuss that. Of course," Lily muttered, interrupting him, vaguely reminded of her conversation with that Ministry Official after the Ball, the one who wouldn't tell her how Christian or Mrs. Crouch were. It was just as irritating to have censored information over a year later.

"I am at liberty to tell you that I would like to work with you, Miss. Evans," Amelia Allen said, hands clasped tightly in her lap.

"Well, thank you," Lily said sincerely, even if she was confused. She looked over at the white haired, wrinkled woman and felt disbelief at her words. Why would she want to work with Lily?

"You don't seem to be taking this very seriously," Ms Allen noted.

"It's a little difficult to take an offer seriously," Lily admitted, "when you can't tell me what I would be doing, what the department does, why you'd ever want to work with me, or even why you heard about me. Plus, for my working title to be an Unspeakable seems ridiculous."

"I understand," Ms Allen said, nodding and smiling. "Because of the nature of our work, we have very little liberty to share our findings or our work with any who do not work within our department, but where there is a will, there is a loophole."

"Excuse me?" Lily asked. Ms. Allen didn't reply, merely levitated a mirror to Lily, who instinctively grabbed it.

"We don't study conventional magic, Miss Evans," Amelia Allen said, waving her wand and muttering an incantation Lily couldn't hear, but Lily could see the effects: the mirror turn on like a telly. Lily felt more than a bit like Snow White.

The words _Areas of Focus_ faded onto and then off of the mirror, followed by a series of pictures with words imposed on them: what looked like a lot of brains in a small pool of green water _Thought_ ; a black veil in the middle of a room filled with stone _Death_ ; a group of round objects floating _Space_ ; clocks lining the walls of a brightly lit room _Time_ ; and just as quickly, other pictures and images, including the one that really stayed with Lily which was a closed door with light glowing behind it _Love_.

The Department of Mysteries, Lily realized, dealt with real mysteries, things people could for work a thousand years deciphering, things neither Muggles nor magical folk could ever understand.

Lily was overwhelmed by the possibilities, but also a bit of fear: "Are you trying to harness the power of these things?"

"No," Ms Allen replied. "We are merely trying to understand these concepts as you are trying to understand time with your wand tests and invented spells."

"Why me?" Lily asked, disbelieving. If she could really make her life's work the study of love and death and time and thought-- It would be incredible. Lily had never considered the idea, but the potential of it was overwhelming. "Why would you want me to work there?"

"Because I want to work with you," Amelia Allen answered simply. "You are young to be offered this position. In fact, I can't remember the last time we offered a job to someone still in Hogwarts, but I need an assistant, someone with energy, a dedication to the abstract, a level head, and a brilliant mind. I also need someone who can easily manipulate magic. Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Flitwick all separately suggested you."

"It is an opportunity many at the Ministry dream of, to be offered an Unspeakable position," Mr. Clark added before Lily had time to ask any other questions or do more than look at Dumbledore -- who was still not looking up -- in wonder.

"But I don't know what I'll be working on," Lily said, thinking of all those images, all of those rooms.

"Specifically, no," Ms Allen said, "but you have an idea, do you not?"

Lily thought of that glowing door, the door that beckoned to her.

"I'll not be able to focus on anything I thought I wanted to study," Lily said wonderingly. She had imagined desk jobs, boring jobs, working her way up through the ranks. Having a horrible first job that she quit after five years when she found something more interesting. But if she chose this, chose to become an Unspeakable, she knew that it would be a lifetime commitment.

"As an Unspeakable, you would be able to study anything," Amelia corrected her. "Everything connects through these ten rooms. Everything."

Lily didn't really understand the reference, but she didn't want to ask, either. Instead, she said, "I don't know anything about this Department."

"No one truly does," Ms Allen said, "until the reach the ninth floor for the first time."

The ninth floor. The mysteries. "Could I tell my friends what I do?"

"Your title, yes. Your department, yes," Ms Allen responded. "But of your work you could tell them nothing."

"No one?" Lily asked, thinking unexpectedly of James and what this would mean for them. But more importantly, she thought about what it would mean if she could look into these disciplines. For her entire seventh year she had felt lost in limbo, flailing about trying to find something to focus on, something to want to do when she left school. She had applied to nearly every job that was not connected with the Ministry, and even a few that were. But the Department of Mysteries, something about it sounded right, like it fit.

And while it took a month's deliberation and a lot of discussions with James, in July Lily Evans became one of the youngest Unspeakables in history. 

**~*~*~**

_Lily Evans and James Potter were not perfect people. They lied and deceived. They put distance between their friends and them. Once, they accidentally shattered the table during a prefect meeting. But they were good, fun people: to help a friend, James illegally became an Animagus and Lily left her sister's wedding reception. They lied to Filch, pretended to flog first years, found Orion's Belt, and danced in the autumn leaves. They named Lily's cat Truth, and she nicknamed James's Dare._

_No matter what else might be said about them, they loved life._

~*~*~

Lily and Christine sat in the back of Transfiguration class taking notes when James, at the desk next to her, leaned over and whispered, "Sickle if you leave class right now."

Lily took a moment to think about whether or not it was his turn to make a bet. Then she looked at her watch. There was still an hour and some minutes left in the class. But honestly, it was October of her seventh year, she had finished the assignment they were working on, and when had Lily ever turned down a bet? Glancing at James out of the corner of her eye, Lily raised her hand.

"Yes, Miss Evans?" McGonagall asked.

"May I leave class now?"

McGonagall’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, which was only a slightly different facial expression than annoyed. "Why?"

Lily, her gaze never wavering from McGonagall, said, "James bet me a sickle that I wouldn't."

"I see." McGonagall looked at James and Sirius, and then told Lily, "Please come here, Miss Evans.”

Lily shoved everything she had out into her bag and went to the front of the room, where McGonagall walked over to meet her.

“Where is your essay?”

"Right here." Lily dug through her things for a minute and then held up the (slightly crumpled) essay.

McGonagall, looking more at James and Sirius, said, "You’re looking a bit ill, Miss Evans. You might want to go to the Hospital Wing.”

Lily’s smile couldn’t have been bigger as she thanked her professor and made for the door. There was a gasp from where Sirius and James sat. Sirius asked in a loud voice, "Then can I go?"

"No," McGonagall said.

"Why not?" Sirius demanded.

"You don’t look ill."

“Neither does Lily!”

Lily took in the room: Christine had picked up her things and moved over to sit next to Gertrude at her desk, the two blonde girls didn't say a thing, just turned to look at the scene unfolding before them; Tracy sat in the corner, not looking up at all, which saddened Lily a bit; Sirius was calling things out to McGonagall, who looked at him with amusement; and James was laughing. Lily smiled. As she left the room, Lily made a few feeble attempts at a cough and gagging sound, but James called out, “Worst fake sickness ever, Evans!”

Sirius leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm writing a strongly worded letter to someone about this."

"Maybe to the Chocolate Frog Card Company?" McGonagall said as Lily shut the door behind her. She was walking down the corridor feeling rather smug and wondering if she should do her work for her other classes, when she heard someone run up behind her and then felt an arm on her shoulders.

James was grinning madly at her.

“Did think I’d let you skive off by yourself, did you?”

“How’d you get out?”

“Told her I had to use the loo.”

She raised her eyebrows. “With your bag and all your materials?”

“That required a bit more explanation,” he agreed, “but she cut me off before I really got rolling.”

“Give me my sickle,” she said, holding out a hand expectedly. They both grinned. "You think we can do this every class?"

"Not if we want to survive the year," James said. "McGonagall won't be that nice every day."

"But she loves you."

James smiled. "It really is obvious, isn't it?"

"Besides," Lily said, choosing to ignore him, "Sirius might murder us anyway for leaving without him."

"Nah, he likes you too much. I, however, might be in trouble." James shrugged. "By the way, next time, I'm stipulating that you can't blame me."

"It's all in the details," Lily said. 

 

 

~*~*~

_So now you have seen them, the golden generation, turn from children into adults. You watched them find Destiny and Fate in the confines of Hogwarts and take them up as walking sticks to aid them in their long journeys into eternity._

_You leave the castle, leave the echoing corridors and talking portraits who were the only witnesses to the love story of James Potter and Lily Evans. As you walk, you decide that there is a moral to this story and you try to discover it. You think about it as you walk across the grass with bare feet, loving the crunching sound, loving those giant bubble-blowers in the distance, remembering patrols and the Game and F.A.D. and cats and proposals and first kisses and the great confusion of Lily's sixth year. You think back on the moments you have seen: four friends in a room failing to transform; four friends racing through the castle; the power of a single shield; a Slytherin prefect wandering the corridors; a grinning first year; an exploding box of friendship notes; an aristocrat who gave up his hereditary rights and supported a werewolf; and a girl who would save the world handing a friend a fork during a hidden dinner. You think about the friends who look out for each other, of course, and realize how very lucky those people are to have found one another._

 

 

~*~*~

Night had fallen late, shrouding Hogwarts in a darkness that Lily Evans tried to get lost in. She hid behind a suit of armor in a far corner of the first floor, trying to breathe silently. Every part of her -- from her left middle toe to her right shoulder blade -- was poised to run at any moment. The first Game of the year had begun two hours ago and Lily had only just escaped a trap set by Tracy and Christine. She was now waiting to hear the telltale footsteps of Sam, Tracy, or Christine.

Lily readjusted her wand in her hand, the sweat making the menial task more difficult than it would otherwise have been. Actually, every part of her was damp with sweat (the night air, as it should be in on September 10th, was stifling). Her robes, which she had charmed to blend in more easily with the dark walls, clung to her body.

Another minute ticked by. Then it happened: footsteps. They were even and loud, like someone who was not worried about being caught.

Lily's heart beat three times faster. Those were the footsteps of a patrolling prefect. But shouldn't there have been two sets of steps? Lily held her breath. Being caught out after curfew the second week of school, her second week as Head Girl, was a horrifying possibility: she would have let down so many people.

The footsteps continued to move towards her. Closer and closer the feet came until finally Lily saw the light of their badge reflecting on the metal of the suit of armor. Then the person started whistling and Lily began to grin. She knew who was patrolling now. Standing behind that suit of armor, Lily readjusted herself, charmed the ground, and, just when the person came into view, she pounced.

"Student out of bounds," she called, launching herself at the patroller and tackling him, shoulder to the ground. Sweaty as she was, Lily did not move away from the person she had pinned beneath her. Instead, she grinned and said, "Hello, there."

"Student out of bounds indeed," James grunted, shifting to make himself more comfortable and wrapping his arms around her. "You're quite good at those Cushioning Charms."

"I tackle a lot of people," Lily said, smiling as tingles spread through her at their close proximity. It felt so good to be near him.

"Aw, you don't have to make me jealous, Lily," James said, looking up at her teasingly. "I know that thing between you and Filch ended months ago."

Lily laughed and said mock-seriously, "You're not on patrol tonight, you know. I really ought to report you."

"You're not on patrol either," James noted, lifting his head off the ground to kiss her right cheek. Then her left. She crossed her arms over his chest and looked down at him, happy.

"Then we find ourselves in a catch-22, don't we? If I report you I'll get into trouble too and it's the same with you," Lily said, pecking him on the mouth quickly as she dropped her elbows to either side of his head to be closer. "What are we going to do?"

"When does the Game end?" James asked, kissing her a bit longer.

Lily let the kiss sketch on a minute before answering, "About twenty minutes."

"Want to cut out early?" he asked. Lily leaned in again and loved feeling his tongue running along her lower lip. Still, Lily shifted quickly so that she could see the rankings on her arm.

"Sure, let's go," Lily agreed, kissing him once more before rolling off him and standing up.

"You're in last, aren't you?" James asked, smirking as he sat up.

"Yep," Lily said, taking his hand and helping him stand up too.

"You're horrible at this Game, you know," James said, using their connected hands to pull her as close to him as possible. "Why do you keep playing it?"

"Haven't you heard?" Lily asked, smiling up at him as she twined her arms behind his neck and leaned in for another kiss. "I'm terribly stubborn."


End file.
